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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




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Joy in the 
Divine Government 



And Other Sermons 



Luther Alexander Gotwald, D.D., 

Late Professor of Practical Theology, Wittenberg 
Theological Seminary \ Springfield, Ohio 



INTRODUCTION BY 



Rev. Prof. H. E. Jacobs, D.D., LL.D. 

Professor of Systematic Theology, Lutheran Seminary, 
Philadelphia, Pa. 




Fleming H. Revel! .^Company' /. 

Chicago, New York & Toronto 
M C M I 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two CoHEe Reowved 

APR. 5 1901 

Copyright entry 

CLASS <X>xXc. N«, 

& ZlST 

COPY B. 



3X?ott 



COPYRIGHT, igOI, 
BY FLEMING H. 
RKVELL COMPANY 



PERSONAL. 

The author of these sermons had planned 
for their publication some considerable time 
before his lamented death, Sept. 15, 1900. 

The cordial welcome with which his pre- 
vious volume, "Sermons for Festival Days," 
was received, had encouraged him to feel and 
hope that a second volume would accomplish 
good in many places where his voice could 
never be heard. 

His life-long and scholarly friend, Prof. 
Henry Eyster Jacobs, contributed the accom- 
panying words of introduction, in accordance 
with the author's request. 

The title is the author's own selection, and 
well illustrates the spirit of joyous submission 
which characterized him during his later years 
of suffering and affliction. His sudden death 
prevented the realization of his cherished hope 
of seeing these sermons given to the world. 
But his wish aiid purpose are herewith car- 
ried out in their present publication; so that 
iii 



Personal. 

he being dead may yet speak to thousands 
through these printed pages, as he already 
addresses thousands through the immortal in- 
fluences of his consecrated life, whether as 
pastor or preacher, professor or friend. 

May the Divine blessing accompany this 
volume in its mission of inspiration, convic- 
tion and consolation to the souls of its readers ! 
May it add new stars to that faithful ministry 
which has already been so gloriously crowned ! 

f. g. G. 



IV 



INTRODUCTION. 

Numerous as are the volumes devoted to the 
form of religious literature to which this vol- 
ume belongs, there is always place for more. 
The Holy Scriptures can never be exhausted, 
and every land and age has its own peculiar 
mode of re-stating its old truths. Even the 
most familiar texts become fresh in the mouth 
of a preacher, who actually writes and speaks 
out of the abundance of his heart. His great 
difficulty is not to find something to say, but to 
find the time and opportunities to expound all 
the fruitful themes that are ever crowding 
upon him with their plea that they be treated 
in a sermon. 

Dr. Gotwald's discourses show that his 
heart was in his calling as a preacher, and that 
their careful preparation was no drudgery, 
but a work of delight. Plain, practical, direct, 
forcible, written in a singularly simple and 
chaste style, and without any ambition to dis- 
play either learning or rhetoric, they are per- 



Introduction. 

vaded by a spirituality that is refreshing and 
inspiring. 

Clear and positive in his convictions, Dr. 
Gotwald evades no question because it is con- 
troverted; and, yet, the polemical spirit no- 
where appears. He tries to get at the heart 
of his text, and then to carry it straight to the 
hearts of his hearers. 

There is not a discourse in this book that 
the "common man" cannot understand; and 
yet they are far from being superficial. Though 
his voice may be heard no more in the pulpit, 
through these sermons his influence will be 
felt far and wide in advancing the cause of 
the Redeemer, to whose service his life was 
consecrated, and whom he so devotedly served. 

Henry E. Jacobs. 

Philadelphia, Pa., September 27th, 1898. 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

Introduction v 

I. Joy in the Divine Government . i 

Psalm 97: i. 

II. The Testimony of Consciousness . . 22 
John 9: 25. 

III. God's Angels Meeting Us in the Way 44 

Genesis 32: 1. 

IV. Concerning Our Temptations . . 65 

Matthew 6: 13. 
V. The Profitableness of Godliness . 87 

1st Timothy 4: 8. 
VI. The Divine Law of Self-Surrender . 107 
John 12: 24. 

VII. Religious Duty Better than Religious 

Enjoyment 124 

Matthew 17: 4. 

VIII. Concerning Paul's Thorn . . . 148 

2d Corinthians 12: 7-9. 

IX. Paul's Unwavering Confidence in 

Christ 168 

2d Timothy 1: 12. 

X. An Uplifted Saviour the Great At- 
traction 188 

John 12: 32. 
XI. The Strength of Young Men . . 206 

1st John 2: 14. 

XII. The Resurrection Body . . . 230 

1st Corinthians 15: 35. 

XIII. The Character of the Lord's Supper 250 

(Synodical Communion Sermon.) 
1st Corinthians 10: 16. 

XIV. Dr. Martin Luther as a Christian . 271 

Hebrews n: 4. 

XV. The Reformation the Work of God . 291 

Ezekiel 1: 18. 



JOY IN THE DIVINE 
GOVERNMENT. 

TEXT. 

"The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice." — Ps. 
xcvii. i. 

That there is a Divine Government, or a 
Providential Rulership, over the universe, is 
a fact made probable already by reason, and 
repeatedly and fully declared by revelation. 
It is a dictate already of reason that, if God 
alone could create the universe, He also 
alone is able to uphold, to direct and to gov- 
ern what He thus created. In other words, 
the admission of the doctrine of divine crea- 
tion of all things, logically necessitates the 
admission, also, of the doctrine of the divine 
government of all things ; declaring with 
Paul: ,k Of Him, and to Him, and through 
Him are all things, and by Him all things 
consist." 

There are some, however, who, even while 
admitting that God may have created the 
universe, yet claim that He does not now 
i 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

govern it personally. They maintain that 
He has left it to govern or develop itself. 
This is the theory of our modern skeptical 
evolutionists, or materialistic scientists. As 
Melanchthon once wrote: "They think of 
God as a shipbuilder, who, when he has com- 
pleted his vessel, launches it and then leaves 
it." Or, to put it into our modern phrase- 
ology, they say that "God has placed the 
government of the universe under estab- 
lished natural laws." 

Let us not, however, in this matter, be im- 
posed upon by a mere plausible phraseology. 
For what, after all, is this something which 
is thus so learnedly called "a natural law," 
and by which our present materialistic skep- 
ticism thus separates God from His works, 
and ignores and denies Him as the Providen- 
tial Governor of the universe which He has 
created. Law is not, in itself, a force. Law 
is simply an expression of the will of the law- 
giver; is simply the mode or manner in 
which intelligent mind and power, acting 
back of the law, expresses itself and executes 
its will. And so this thing called "natural 
2 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

law," is not in itself an independent and self 
existent or self-executing power, apart from 
God, but it is simply God's established order 
of expressing His will, and of putting forth 
His force both in the creation and govern- 
ment of the universe. There is, e. g., what 
we call "the law of gravitation." But that 
law is not in itself a cause. It simply is the 
expression of a general fact. It is not that 
law of gravitation which makes an apple fall 
always downward instead of upward. It is 
something back of that law, and mightier 
than it, which causes it. The law itself, in- 
stead of being an independent cause, is only 
an effect of a cause, and that cause is God 
who has established the law. God is the 
force acting, and what we call the law is 
simply an expression of the mode or man- 
ner in which, in this especial respect, God 
thus acts. 

And so with regard to all the so-called 
"natural laws" of the universe. They have 
not originated or established themselves. 
They do not sustain or execute themselves. 
It is not they that are the rulers of the uni- 
3 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

verse. On the contrary, they are merely the 
established principles on or by which God 
rules it ; the methods only in which God ordi- 
narily and generally exerts His power; the 
instruments or agencies simply by which 
God rules. As our text declares, "The Lord 
reigneth." Not fate, not chance, not law, 
but God, the Eternal First Cause and Up- 
holder of all things, is on the Throne, and 
it is His sceptre that sways dominion over 
the whole realm both of mind and matter. 

But whatever may be the teachings of 
reason upon the subject, this truth of a 
divine providence or government over all 
things is, we are sure, clearly and repeatedly 
declared to us, in Scripture. So frequently, 
indeed, does the Bible declare it, that, if 
we were to take from it all that it thus con- 
tains upon this subject of God's providence 
or government, the divine volume would in- 
deed be very greatly abridged, and would be 
an almost entirely different book. Almost 
countless are the passages in the Sacred 
Scriptures which assert and exhibit it ; and 
everywhere in this inspired volume is God 
4 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

declared to be ruling and governing all 
things according to His will. He is declared 
to be the Preserver both of man and beast; 
to "uphold all things by the word of His 
power;" to "open His hand and satisfy the 
desire of every living thing;" to "give to the 
beast his food and to the young ravens which 
cry." We are told that in Him "we live and 
move and have our being*;" that by Him 
"our steps are ordered;" that from Him 
comes to us "every good and perfect gift;" 
that "He is the Governor among the na- 
tions;" that "He is the Lord, our God, and 
His judgments are in all the earth." We 
read that "the Most High ruleth in the king- 
dom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever 
He will;" that "the Lord killeth and maketh 
alive ; He bringeth down to the grave and 
bringeth up; He maketh poor and maketh 
rich;" that "promotion cometh neither from 
the west nor from the south, but God is the 
Judge ; He putteth down one, and setteth up 
another ;" that "He notes 'the sparrow's fall/ 
and that He has numbered the very hairs of 
every head." 

5 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

That "the Lord reigns" is not, then, a 
mere probability of reason, but it is an ab- 
solute certainty, declared most frequently by 
God Himself in His own infallible word. 

He, therefore, who doubts or denies this 
doctrine or fact of such divine providence or 
government must also, if he would be con- 
sistent, doubt and deny the Scriptures them- 
selves, which teach it; for no truth is more 
clearly and positively assumed and declared 
everywhere throughout this Word of God 
rhan is this truth : 'The Lord reigneth." 

Admitting then the fact of this divine gov- 
ernment or providence over the universe, we 
may next properly inquire : 

WHAT IS THE CHARACTER OF IT? 

From what we know of the character of 
God, as He has revealed Himself to us, both 
in conscience and in His Word, we can read- 
ily infer and know what the character of His 
government is. The personal character of a 
king determines the character of his king- 
dom, and of a law-giver the character of the 
laws which he enacts. And so God's char- 
acter decides what is and must be the char- 
6 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

acter of the providence or government which 
He exercises. 

I. God, first, is a God of infinite wis- 
dom : His government therefore is carried 

ON, WE MUST ASSUME, BY INFINITE WISDOM. 

In proof of the infinite wisdom of God, the 
Scriptures tell us that past, present, and fu- 
ture are all constantly open before Him ; that 
He sees the end of all things as well as the 
beginning; that He foreknows every occur- 
rence, contingency, possibility in all time and 
eternity. As in an ever present picture, 
everything that ever has occurred, or does 
now occur, or will occur, lies manifest to 
His sight. The minutest object, as well as 
the greatest, the least important event as well 
as the most important, the obscurest person 
as well as the most famous; all are alike 
known to Him. 

Thus infinite in wisdom He always knows 
also what is the best; the best for His own 
glory, the best for the happiness and good of 
all His creatures, the best ends at which to 
aim, the best means to employ, the best time 
in which to act, the best choice to make. 
7 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Guided by His unerring wisdom, He knows 
when to give and when to withhold, when 
to check and when to impel, when to enrich 
and when to impoverish, when to create and 
when to destroy. He knows all things. His 
wisdom is all-embracing and infinite. He is 
the Omniscient God. He cannot, therefore, 
possibly, in anything, ever fall into error or 
be guilty of the slightest mistake. 

And this, therefore, is also, I now add, 
the character of His government. It cannot 
be otherwise. God, being what He is, in- 
finite in wisdom, His government is also 
based upon infinite wisdom, and is conducted 
upon the most accurate and minute divine 
intelligence, a government in which all 
things are done wisely and well, and in the 
best possible way both for His glory and 
the highest good of His creatures. 

II. This divine government is also a 
government of infinite power! for god is 
the Almighty or Omnipotent God. 

He not only knows all things, but He has 
the ability also to do all things. "All things 
are possible with God," says our Saviour. 
8 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Whatever He wills to do, that He possesses 
the might to do. All agencies are under His 
control, and subject to His bidding; and all 
can be wheeled by Him, at His pleasure, into 
His service, and made to subserve His pur- 
poses. At any point in the universe, upon 
any being, or upon any order of beings, at 
any link in the great chain of cause and ef- 
fect, either through the agency of created be- 
ings, such as man, angels, devils, by nations 
or by individuals, by Church or by State, by 
mind or matter, or else directly, by His own 
agency alone, without the employment of 
any secondary causes. He can bring His 
divine power to bear, and can accomplish 
whatsoever He will. 

His government, therefore, is a mighty 
government ; mighty to enforce its authority, 
to exact its demands, to accomplish its ends, 
to overthrow all opposition to it, to punish 
and destroy its foes, and to deliver and help 
and save its friends. All power is His in 
heaven, earth, and hell, and all things are 
under the sway of His sceptre and subject to 
His will. But 

9 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

III. This divine government must also, 
we may notice thirdly, be a government 
of patience and love i for god is "the god 
of Patience" and "God of Love/' 

Under this divine government beings exist 
and occurrences are allowed which are di- 
rectly opposed to God, and we sometimes 
are led to ask: Why, if the Lord reigneth, 
are they allowed? Satan, e. g., exists. If 
"the Lord reigns/' why is he allowed to 
exist? Sin exists. Why? Injustice, wrong, 
oppression, cruelty, fraud, profanity, murder, 
crimes of every kind, exist. Why? If "the 
Lord reigns/' if there be a moral govern- 
ment over man, if God has all wisdom so that 
He knows of the existence of all this sin, and 
if He has all power so that He could, in a 
moment, destroy sinners and banish sin from 
the universe, why, as a holy God, as He is, 
does He not, also, at once do so? Why is 
sin thus allowed under the government of a 
divine and holy being such as God is? 

And there are sorrow and suffering also 
everywhere in the world. If the Lord reign- 
eth, why do they exist? Why does He not 
10 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

banish them? Why, especially, are not the 
righteous, His own people, exempted from 
them? Has He no knowledge of their sor- 
rows and sufferings? Yes, of every one of 
them. Has He not the power to exempt 
and relieve them from them? Yes, with all 
ease He could do it. And does He not care 
for them? does He not love them? does He 
not wish them happiness? O, yes, infinitely 
does He thus love and care for them. But 
why then, I repeat, do they exist? Why is 
sin here? Why sorrow? Why suffering? 

Such questions are easily asked; and they 
are very deep questions, and are very hard 
to answer. For remember it is God's gov- 
ernment of which we are speaking. And 
what are we that we should expect to fathom 
and comprehend fully His deep counsels, His 
infinite vision and plans? 

But this much, from our knowledge of His 
character, we may and do know, whether we 
know why they exist or not : viz., that neither 
sin nor suffering would exist under the moral 
government of such a Being as God if it were 
not best, for His glory and for the highest 
ii 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ultimate happiness of His creatures that they 
should exist. Divine Love, we may feel sure, 
is the moral background of all this dark 
picture of sin and suffering in the universe ; 
the key that explains these mysteries of the 
moral government of a holy and benevolent 
Jehovah. 

Not, therefore, because God has no power 
to banish them, not because He is indifferent 
to their existence do Satan, sin and suffering 
exist. But they exist because our human 
race is now, here in this life, in a probation- 
ary state, in a state of moral test or trial, 
in a condition of moral discipline and culture 
and purification for a better and an eternal 
life hereafter. And these are the agencies 
which God employs to carry on this proba- 
tionary state, and tinder it to evolve and exe- 
cute His own wise and eternal counsels. 

But this, I repeat, we may, from our knowl- 
edge of His character, be sure of : that God 
in love rules the universe, and that whatever 
physical or moral evil exists in this world of 
ours exists for wise and benevolent purposes, 
and will all be overruled and used for the ul- 
12 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

timate happiness of the largest number. And 
this is why even His own children are not 
exempt from suffering. It is just because of 
His love for them that He does not exempt 
them. The sorrows, the trials, the sufferings, 
the tears, and the heartaches which thus, un- 
der His government, come upon His chil- 
dren have rich divine blessings in them, work 
together for their spiritual and eternal good, 
purify their characters, fit them for heaven, 
and are the means which He employs to 
bring them, at last, to that blessed life be- 
yond the present where sorrow and suffering 
shall be forever unknow r n. Even in the dark- 
est and most painful dealings of God with 
His people, it is still in love He deals with 
them. As Paul writes : "Whom the Lord 
loveth He chasteneth, and correcteth every 
son whom He receiveth." He causes "all 
things to work together for good to them that 
love Him and are the called according to His 
purpose." In everything there is love. 

"Even the hour that darkest seemeth, 
Does His changeless goodness prove; 
13 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

From the gloom His brightness streameth, 
God is Wisdom, God is Love." 

IV. This divine government, I note yet 
in the fourth place, is a universal and an 
all - embracing government, extending to 
every possible object and being : for god is 
an Omnipresent God. 

It extends to all worlds ; to every star and 
planet and sun. It embraces all beings; an- 
gels, archangels, redeemed spirits, devils, lost 
souls in hell, every human being on earth, 
every beast and bird and insect and worm 
on land, every fish of the sea. It includes 
under its sway every event; the rise and fall 
of empires, the history of nations, the rav- 
ages of war, the sweep of the pestilence, the 
growth or failure of harvests, the discoveries, 
arts, inventions, commerce of the world, the 
flight of a comet, the fall of the raindrop or 
flake of snow; all are comprehended in and 
are the result of this universal government 
or providence of God. 

And not to each human being only, but to 
every particular experience, occurrence, and 
event in the history of that being does this 
14 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

divine government also extend. Nothing, re- 
lating to any one of us, no matter how triv- 
ial, is unembraced in God's providence over 
us. All things enter into His divine plans 
concerning us ; are links in the chain of 
causes with which He is working out our 
destiny; means by which He is seeking to 
draw and hold us to Himself, to chasten and 
purify our characters, to guide us through 
life, and bring us finally to the bliss of the 
heavenly life. Our birth, our surroundings, 
our experiences, our circumstances, our 
friends or enemies, our wealth or poverty, 
our prosperity or adversity, our sickness or 
health, our joy or sorrow, our life or death, 
God's hand is in them all. "The Lord reign- 
eth" may be said concerning them all. All 
are parts of His providential plan, and are 
embraced under His government over us. 
"He knows our downsitting and our upris- 
ing; He understands our thoughts afar off; 
He compasses our path and our lying down ; 
He is acquainted with all our ways." 

Men talk very foolishly when they say that 
they believe in a general providence, but not 
15 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

in a particular or special providence. There 
can be no general providence without a par- 
ticular one making up the general; just as 
there can be no whole without all the parts, 
no chain without all the links composing the 
chain, no ocean without all the drops that 
make up the ocean. The seemingly small 
and insignificant things in a man's life are 
often the hinges upon which his very destiny, 
for both time and eternity, turns. Mere 
trifles seemingly have often been the occa- 
sions or causes of some of the greatest revo- 
lutions both in Church and State. Could 
there be a providence in the one without a 
providence also in the other? A providence 
in the result and yet none in the causes and 
means producing the result? A providence 
in the end and yet none in the beginning? 
Folly ! A general providence can, in the 
nature of the case, only exist through an all- 
embracing particular providence. And we 
are shut up to believe either in such particu- 
lar providence or believe in no providence at 
all. Denying God's government in all things, 
we must deny it in anything; and we must 
16 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

regard ourselves, and the universe, as with- 
out any thought or care in the divine mind 
at all. 

But let us now yet especially notice, in 
conclusion, the Psalmist's exhortation, here 
in our text, based upon this fact that "the 
Lord thus reigneth." 

He bids us rejoice in it. 'The Lord," he 
exclaims, "reigneth." Hence, because of this, 
"let the earth rejoice, let the multitude of 
isles be glad thereof." Let there, he means, 
be universal joy in this fact of the divine 
government. If God reigns, then there is 
room and reason to rejoice. Let men re- 
joice that the universe is not under the 
reign of chance, or fate, or mere cold law, 
but that the Lord reigneth, that God is on 
the throne; a God of infinite wisdom, power, 
love, a God everywhere present, and doing 
all things for His glory and His creatures' 
good. Let every flower that blooms re- 
joice, for it is He that arrays it in its 
glory. Let all the beasts of the field 
rejoice, for it is He that giveth them 
their food. Let the birds of the air rejoice, 
17 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

for He careth for them. Let sun, moon and 
stars rejoice, for it is He that holds them in 
safety in their orbits and guides them in their 
courses. Let the earth rejoice, for it is He 
that hath made it and who upholdeth it. Let 
the nations rejoice, for He is controlling and 
governing them. Let the Church rejoice, for 
He has her in His heart, and holds over her 
His ever-protecting arm. And even let sin- 
ners rejoice, for it is because God is what He 
is, the God of Patience and of Love, and be- 
cause His government is what it is, that they 
still are spared as they are, and are dealt with 
as patiently as they are. And yet let them 
not presume. Let them not harden them- 
selves under this divine leniency. God's gov- 
ernment, as we have seen, is one, also, of 
power. There is retribution and wrath in 
it, at last, as well as love. Let them rejoice 
then that God has spared them as He has, 
that He is Love, that He has provided them 
a Saviour, that He offers them pardon, that 
He still waits to save them, and joyfully let 
them accept the salvation He offers. For 
let them know that this love of God if per- 
18 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

sistently rejected will change into eternal 
divine anger, and all this divine power, now 
put forth to save them, will be employed to 
punish and eternally destroy them. Espe- 
cially let the righteous, however, rejoice that 
God is on the throne. Their Father holds 
the reins of universal rule. They are safe, 
therefore, under His government. No 
weapon formed against them can prosper; 
no enemy can destroy them; no power can 
pluck them out of His hands or separate 
them from Him. The good work He has 
begun within them He will perfect. They 
are dear to Him as the apple of His eye. 
He allows sorrow, it is true, to come upon 
them, but it is always allowed only in love ; 
is alw r ays sent only to purify and bless them. 
He sanctifies also their joy to them. In every 
experience of their life He leads, guides, 
strengthens, helps, comforts them. He is 
their God, their loving Father. Let the 
righteous therefore rejoice. For if God be 
for them, who can be against them? 

And thus also let the Church rejoice that 
God reigns. There are times when evil seems 
19 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

to be getting the upper hand in the world, 
when the devil appears to be getting the ad- 
vantage of God, when the cause of holiness 
and truth seems to be losing ground, when 
the Kingdom of Christ appears to be suffer- 
ing loss and going down before the attacks 
upon it of the kingdom of Satan. But let not 
the Church lose faith. God is on the throne. 
He holds the reins in His hands, and He 
w T ill not let them go. He will cause all the 
wrath of man to praise Him. Above all this 
din and turmoil and strife and opposition and 
sin, sits God as the Omnipotent One, carry- 
ing out quietly His eternal plan with regard 
to our earth and man, and executing each 
moment His purposes especially concerning 
His Church and the Kingdom of His divine 
Son, Jesus Christ. 

Be glad, therefore, at all time, O Church 
of Christ, in the consciousness of the love for 
thee and providence over thee of thy cove- 
nant-keeping God. In His hands thou art 
always safe. With Him as thy protector, 
thou hast nothing to fear even in the darkest 
hour. 'The Lord reigneth ; let the earth re- 

20 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

joice; let the multitude of isles be glad 
thereof/' "And I heard as it were the voice 
of a great multitude, and as the voice of 
many waters, and as the voice of mighty 
thunderings, saying: "Alleluia; for the 
Lord Omnipotent reigneth." 



z\ 



THE TESTIMONY OF 
CONSCIOUSNESS. 

TEXT. 

"He answered' and said: Whether He be a sinner 
or no I know not. One thing I know: That, whereas 
I was blind, now I see." — John ix. 25. 

Our text is the declaration, on the part of 
the man who had been blind but to whom 
the Saviour gave sight, of his consciousness, 
or personal assurance, that such a miracle 
had been wrought upon him and that he 
now actually did see. Two things, beyond a 
doubt, he knew, viz. : that once he was blind, 
and that now he could see. There were some 
things connected both with his past blindness 
and with his present sight which he did not, 
and could not, understand; but, with regard 
to the fact of each, he was positively and ab- 
solutely certain; he knew that once he could 
not see, and he knew that now he could see. 
Hence, in answer to all the cavils of the 
enemies of Jesus, and in answer to all his 
own doubts concerning him, and in answer 
22 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

to all the questionings which arose in his 
mind concerning the nature of the miracle, 
or how Jesus wrought it, he fell back simply 
on the facts, on what he knew, in his per- 
sonal consciousness, to be facts, and said: 
"One thing I know, that, whereas I was 
blind, now I see." 

This assurance of this healed blind man 
of the reality of his cure, or this certainty 
in his own personal consciousness of the 
change which had been wrought by Christ 
upon him, I wish to use, today, as an illus- 
tration of what may be called: "The Testi- 
mony of Consciousness to our Personal Ac- 
ceptance with God and our Heirship, 
through Jesus Christ, to Eternal Life." 

There is such a thing as Personal Chris- 
tian Assurance within ourselves that we are 
no longer in a State of Nature and Moral 
Death, but that we have been spiritually re- 
newed, and are now in a State of Grace, and 
are Heirs, therefore, of Everlasting Life. 
With this healed blind man, speaking of our 
changed spiritual state, we can say: "One 
thing I know : that, whereas I was blind, now 
23 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

I see." It is the testimony of our individual 
consciousness to our own renewed spiritual 
state. 

Let us carefully together, today, consider 
this subject, and, for our instruction and 
spiritual benefit, learn from it all that we 
possibly can. 

My proposition is that all real Believers 
in the Truth of God's Word, and all who 
truly, in an Evangelical sense, do believe in 
Christ Jesus, the Saviour who is offered to 
them in that Word, may also have within 
themselves, in their own personal conscious- 
ness, the assurance that they have thus be- 
lieved, that what the Word of God declares 
is true, and that the Saviour who is there of- 
fered is, indeed, all that He is there declared 
to be, and that, because of their trust in Him, 
they are in a pardoned and saved state with 
God. 

In considering this Proposition, let us en- 
deavor 

I. To PROVE IT. 
II. To GUARD IT AGAINST ERROR; AND 
III. TO SHOW ITS GREAT VALUE. 

24 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

I. The fact that there is such a thing as 
Personal Assurance of Acceptance with God, 
can scarcely, I think, be doubted by any one 
who really receives the Scriptures. The con- 
sciousness of men is constantly, in Scripture, 
appealed to for Evidence of the Truth of 
God's Word, and especially of the certainty 
of their own justified relations to God. 

Abel "obtained witness," we read, "that he 
was righteous, God testifying of his gifts." 
Enoch walked with God, and, before his 
translation, he had this testimony that he 
pleased God. Noah also had divine testi- 
mony of his acceptance : "Thee have I seen 
righteous before me in this generation," said 
God to him. Abraham was called "the 
Friend of God." Job knew that his Re- 
deemer lived, and that he should see him. 
Moses spoke face to face with God. David 
gives repeated evidence, in his Psalms, of 
his consciousness that God was his portion. 
Isaiah sings: k '0 Lord, I will praise Thee; 
though Thou wast angry with me, Thine 
anger is turned away, and Thou comfortest 
me." 

25 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

And, in the New Testament, Saints are 
described as being "filled with the Holy 
Ghost, and as rejoicing with joy unspeakable 
and full of glory." Jesus says : "My peace 
I give unto you." "When He the Comforter 
is come He will lead you into all Truth; for 
He shall receive of mine and shall show it 
unto you." Jesus also said to Peter : "Lov- 
est thou me?" a most direct address to 
Peter's own inner spirit for the Evidence or 
for Proof of His love. And so, right here 
in the narrative of the cure of the blind man, 
we find the Saviour making an immediate 
appeal to the man's own consciousness, to 
his own knowledge of the state of his own 
heart in relation to Christ, asking him, as 
He did : "Dost thou believe on the Son of 
God?" And this was frequently done in the 
Ministry of Our Saviour. Jesus frequently 
thus threw men within and back on them- 
selves, and put their own consciousness on 
the stand to witness with regard to Him- 
self and their relations to Him. 

And how repeated and positive the decla- 
rations also of Scripture upon this point ! 
26 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

How often, e. g., the Sacred Writers, speak- 
ing evidently out of their own experience, 
their own inner consciousness, use the ex- 
pression: "I know," "we know," "we are 
persuaded," "we are sure." 

Take, e. g., such passages as these: "We 
know that we have passed from death unto 
life;" "I know whom I have believed, and 
am persuaded that He is able to keep that 
which I have committed unto Him against 
that day ;" "Hereby know we that we dwell 
in Him, and He in us, and His love is per- 
fected in us ;" "The Spirit itself beareth wit- 
ness with our spirit that we are the children 
of God, and if children then heirs; heirs of 
God and joint heirs with Christ." 

And so in many other passages. There is 
everywhere a recognition of this Voice with- 
in; this Witness of the Spirit of God to the 
Truth and Reality of Religion, in the Souls 
of men ; in a word, of the Testimony of Ex- 
perience, of men's own consciousness that 
Christianity is true, and that they are, 4 or 
are not, the Children of God. 

And, besides, there are hundreds and 
27 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

thousands of Christians, whose testimony is 
in all respects worthy of fullest credence, 
who possess this Assurance ; who, by the 
Witness of the Spirit within their hearts, 
know that they are the Children of God; 
whose own Consciousness bears witness that 
Christianity is true, and that they themselves 
have been born of God and are heirs of 
heaven ; who with the blind man of the text 
can say : "One thing I know, that, whereas 
I was blind, now I see." 

The fact, therefore, I repeat, that there is 
such a thing as Christian Assurance, based 
upon personal religious experience; a Wit- 
ness of the Holy Ghost to the inner spirit or 
soul of the renewed man; a testimony in the 
believer's individual consciousness of the 
truth as it is in Christ; all this, I say, can- 
not be denied. It is true. God's Word de- 
clares it. Christian Testimony, which can- 
not reasonably be doubted, confirms it. 

It is necessary, however, now 

LI. Carefully to guard this Doctrine of the 
inner Witness of the Spirit, or of the Testi- 
mony of our own Consciousness, against the 
28 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

gross Errors and Abuses to which it is 
liable. 

I need scarcely say that there is, in this 
whole matter of the inner Witness of the 
Spirit, the very greatest danger of decep- 
tion. Many, indeed, are, in respect to it, very 
greatly deceived. Much is received and be- 
lieved to be the suggestion and the testimony 
of God's Holy Spirit, in men's hearts, which 
is nothing more than their own mere ex- 
cited fancy, or carnal imaginings, and which, 
indeed, is often the wicked and foul sugges- 
tions even of Satan himself. Some of the 
most shocking immoralities, some of the 
most revolting crimes, some of the most 
cruel deeds that have ever darkened the 
pages of History, have been committed in 
the name of Religion, and were committed 
ostensibly or professedly under the sugges- 
tion or impulse of the Holy Spirit. Every- 
one, at all acquainted with History, well 
know T s this. The dreadful horrors of the In- 
quisition; the shocking lewdness and im- 
morality of the Fanatics, during the Period 
of the Reformation ; the cruel burning of men 
29 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

and women, and even little children, as 
witches ; all these things have been done, and 
often sincerely, in the name of Religion and 
of Christianity, and, as men supposed, in 
obedience to the inner moving of the Holy 
Ghost. Jesus Himself says : "They shall 
put you out of the Synagogues ; yea, the 
time cometh that whosoever killeth will 
think that he doeth God's service. " And 
Paul, concerning the Jews, says : "I bear 
them record that they have a zeal for God, 
but not according to knowledge/' 

There is then, I repeat, danger of decep- 
tion in this whole matter; and a man's feel- 
ings, his spirit within him, his consciousness, 
may tell him he is a Christian, a Child of 
God, and that he is doing God's service; 
and he may even have, at times, the high- 
est kinds of so-called religious raptures and 
ecstasies, and swoons, and visions: there 
may, I say, be an inner witness, an internal 
testimony or consciousness of all this, and 
yet in it all there may not be the first particle 
of the work or grace of the Holy Spirit. 
The man's heart may, all the time, still be un- 
30 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

renewed, and he may still be in his sins, and 
on the way to Eternal Death. 

The question, then, may well be asked: 
— What constitutes a genuine inner Wit- 
ness? How does the Holy Spirit bear to 
the Soul this inner Testimony, this self-au- 
thenticating Evidence, this Consciousness, 
amounting to Assurance, of which the Scrip- 
tures so often speak, that we are the Children 
of God : "new creatures in Christ Jesus/' 
really born anew into the Kingdom of 
Grace? How? What are the "tests" by 
which I may safely know that I am not de- 
ceived, and that it is no false voice, but the 
real and true voice of God's Holy Spirit in 
my soul, which is thus speaking "peace" to 
me? In answer, I reply: — 

a. That this "Testimony" or "Assurance," 
when truly that of the Holy Spirit, is always 
imparted or borne to the soul in connection 
with the Word of God; i. e., it comes from 
faith in the Word of God. 

There is no such thing as the direct or im- 
mediate witnessing of the Holy Spirit, apart 
from, and without the medium and use of, 
3i 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

"the Word;" but always the Spirit bears 
witness through or by the Word. In all His 
operations upon the soul He thus acts 
through the instrumentality or agency of the 
Word or Truth. By the Word (and Sacra- 
ment, or Word in connection with the Wa- 
ter) He regenerates. '"Born of water and 
the Spirit." "Being born again, not of cor- 
ruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the 
Word of God, which liveth and abideth for- 
ever." By the Word, also, the Holy Ghost 
sanctifies. "Sanctify them," prayed the Sav- 
iour, "by the Truth: Thy Word is Truth." 
And thus also by this written Word of God, 
the Word which the Holy Spirit Himself in- 
spired, does the Holy Spirit bear witness or 
assurance of the reality or truth of the Word, 
and convey to the soul the spiritual blessings 
of peace, assurance, comfort, hope, joy, 
promised in the Word. Peace comes always 
by faith : faith in the Word, faith in the Christ 
revealed in the Word. "Being justified by 
faith, we have peace with God, through our 
Lord Jesus Christ." 

Thus by faith in the Word, the soul says 
32 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

with the blind man: "I know that whereas 
I was blind now I see. I was blind in sin; 
in darkness with regard to God, and Christ, 
and my sins, and danger; I was in the thick 
gloom of spiritual night and death; but now 
I see ; now I am in the light, in joy, in grace, 
in new life, in Christ !" How, I ask such a 
soul, how do you know that you are all this? 
How, or in what way does the Spirit of God 
bear to you the witness of all this ? And the 
answer is : Through the Word. I believe 
this Word of God. I trust myself to this 
Christ whom this Word here reveals, and as 
He is here revealed: I comply with the Con- 
ditions of Pardon, and Acceptance, and Sal- 
vation, which are so plainly here laid down. 
The Spirit helps me to do so ; and, as I do 
so, I have peace, I have hope, I have joy in 
my soul ; I know that I am a Child of God, 
an Heir of heaven; for this is what God's 
Word promises to all who comply with 
these "conditions," to all who do thus trust 
themselves to Christ ; and this, therefore, the 
Spirit now tells me is all mine, because I 
thus trust. 

33 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Thus the Spirit honors and uses His own 
inspired Word as a means of bestowing As- 
surance. Thus He bears witness, not by vis- 
ion, or by some kind of subjective elevation, 
or mere natural rapture of soul into a clair- 
voyant state, but simply through the Truth, 
and by faith in the Truth. The Holy Spirit 
helps the soul to believe God's Word, to take 
God right at His word, and then because it 
has thus taken Him, it assures Him that he 
is a Child of God. In other words, this "In- 
ner Witness" is the whispering of the Spirit 
of God's sure word of acceptance to the soul 
that is resting fully and only on that Written 
Word of God. 

And I may here add that this inner wit- 
ness is thus not only imparted or begotten 
in the soul through the medium of the ob- 
jective word, but must be, and always also 
is, in entire harmony with that objective 
word. In the nature of things, the Holy 
Ghost being the Author of both, it must be 
so. The Spirit cannot contradict Himself. 
Hence, also, the written inspired word must 
ever be made the supreme measure and 
34 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

moral test of all our inner experiences. "To 
the law and to the testimony/' says Isaiah, 
"if they speak not according to this word it 
is because there is no light in them." Abra- 
ham said unto the rich man in hell, concern- 
ing his five brethren yet on earth : "They 
have Moses and the Prophets ; let them hear 
them." Thus must all our so-called religious 
experiences ever harmonize with, and corre- 
spond with, the Written Word: not the 
Word interpreted by, and contorted, and 
wrenched out of its plain and true meaning, 
to be made to correspond with the arbitrary 
inner experience. Thus measured by God's 
Word, much that now passes for the highest 
and best kind of religious experience would 
fall to the ground. And then there is another 
test. 

b. This inner Witness, where it is genu- 
ine, where it is indeed the Spirit's Witness, 
is always evidenced by a corresponding holy 
or truly Christian eternal life. 

Where there is a true religious experience 
within, there will also, as certainly as shadow 
follows substance, be a godly deportment 
35 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

without. A godly spirit, the Spirit of Christ 
Himself: godly words, godly dealings with 
his fellowmen, godly prayers, godly deeds, 
godly living. 

It is all well enough for us as Christians 
to speak to each other of our experience; 
of what we know and feel in our hearts of 
the grace of God. But, after all, the best 
evidence that a man is indeed a Christian, 
is found, not so much in how he feels, as in 
how he lives. The life is the proof. "By their 
fruits ye shall know them." Let me see how 
you live; acquaint me with your temper, 
your words, your actions, your daily con- 
duct as a Christian; let me know how faith- 
ful or unfaithful in all the duties of Scrip- 
tural piety you are ; what kind of a husband, 
or wife, or son or daughter you are. Let me 
see how square in your dealings you are. 
Show me all this ; and then I will know, and 
then the world also will know, and then you 
yourself also will know whether you are a 
Christian or not. For where the heart is 
changed and right, the outer life will also be 
right. Where there is a true inner Witness 
36 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

there will always also be the godly life as 
an outer Witness. Nor is, you may rest 
assured, the inner true if the outer is want- 
ing. The Holy Spirit would not thus con- 
tradict Himself: whispering "peace" to the 
soul within, and yet allowing it to live in 
sin without. "A good tree cannot bring forth 
evil fruit ; neither can a corrupt tree bring- 
forth good fruit. Wherefore," says Christ, 
and let us mark well His words, "by their 
fruits ye shall know them." 

Let no one, then, deceive himself into the 
belief that his inner Witness is the Witness 
of the Holy Spirit, unless it possesses these 
two positive and essential evidences; viz., 
first, that it is born of the Word of God, 
viz., "not of corruptible seed," as St. Peter 
expresses it, "but of incorruptible, by the 
Word of God, which liveth and abideth for- 
ever." And then, secondly, that it is attend- 
ed by a godly, consistent, and faithful Chris- 
tian Life. For he that possesses these is not 
deceived. He who has these can, in truth, 
with this healed blind man say: "One thing 
I know, that whereas I was blind, now I 
37 



* Joy in the Divine Government. 

see." But if he possesses not these, then he 
is deceived, be his pretentions to religious 
experience what they may. "He that lacketh 
these things is blind." 

But let us now yet consider: 

III. The value of this Testimony of Con- 
sciousness, or of Experience, both to the 
Truth of Christianity, and to the Reality of 
our own Personal Piety. 

This Consciousness that we are the Chil- 
dren of God is of inexpressible value. To 
have, not the Hope only, but the Assurance, 
the positive testimony within ourselves, 
wrought there by the Holy Spirit, that we 
have indeed passed from death unto life, 
this is of infinite worth. To be able to say: 
"I know it is so : the Spirit bears witness, 
through the Word, with my spirit, that I 
am a Child of God." Oh that is the richest 
blessing which the soul, this side of heaven, 
can enjoy. In every way it is unspeakably 
valuable. It is valuable because it is 

I. A Confirmation of God's own Written 
Word. 

It is the testimony of our own experience 
38 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

to the truth of what God, in His Word, 
promises to all who will, with full confidence, 
commit themselves to His mercy through 
Christ. In such experience "we therefore, 
set to our seal that God is true," and that 
His Word is true. And thus we, in the 
strongest possible manner, commend the 
Word of God to others. 

2. It is valuable also as a Source of in- 
expressible personal comfort and joy to our- 
selves. 

Think, for a moment, what all is implied 
in such an Assurance: pardon, peace with 
God, grace to help in every need, adoption 
into the family of God, certainty of heaven, 
all this. How blessed the condition of the 
soul that has, from day to day, within itself 
the consciousness that all this belongs to 
it. What peace and comfort, and strength, 
and joy, and hope, and heaven, are all his, 
and must, in the nature of the case, be his 
who thus takes in the fact, and lives in the 
consciousness and realization of the truth 
that all this is, indeed, through Christ, his 
relation to God. Such a soul enjoys heaven 
39 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

already on earth. And, day by day, he can 
sing : 

"The opening heavens around me shine 

With beams for sacred bliss, 
When Jesus shows His heart is mine. 

And whispers I am His." 

Is such an Assurance, such a Conscious- 
ness, not, then, valuable? 

3. But it is valuable, also, as an Incentive 
to Christian Activity. 

Then man who thus has this sense of his 
Adoption, and w 7 ho thus, in his own heart, 
experiences the blessedness of pardoned sin 
and of hope through Christ, is moved, by his 
own experience, to tell others, to tell even 
the whole world of this precious Saviour, of 
this gracious, loving, God, of this comfort 
and joy of a Christian life, and bring them 
all, if possible, also to know, and possess, 
and enjoy them. The Love of Christ, thus 
dwelling in their own souls, constrains them 
to have others also taste and be filled with 
it. And hence, also, it is those Christians 
who, in some degree, at least, have this 
Assurance of their own acceptance, who are, 
40 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

also, the most active and earnest in efforts to 
lead others to the Saviour. This is always so. 

4. And then this Consciousness, or this 
Experience of the Grace of God in our hearts, 
is valuable, also, as an element of success in 
our efforts to lead others to the Saviour. 
There is no testimony so convincing, so 
piercing, and persuasive, and irresistible as 
the testimony of Experience. When a man, 
if he is at all a man of truth, tells you : "I 
know such a thing is true because I myself 
have tried it, I experienced it, I myself 
passed through it, and have, here in myself, 
the proof of it," you must believe him. It 
is the testimony not of argument, or theory, 
or speculation, or hearsay, but of direct per- 
sonal Experience, and you cannot doubt it. 

And so in the matter of Religion. The 
testimony of Experience is powerful. It goes 
right down into men's hearts. It silences 
all their objections. It dumfounds all their 
cavils. It hushes them. It does more : it 
convinces them; it melts, persuades, wins 
them. 

And, then, there is power in this testimony 
41 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

of consciousness for another reason; viz., a 
man tells what he has himself actually experi- 
enced so differently from what he tells that 
which he has not himself experienced. He 
tells it positively, earnestly, as a living real- 
ity before and within his own soul; and the 
very way in which he thus tells it, carries 
conviction of the truth of what he declares, 
and leads men to accept, and believe, and do 
what he says. Yes, the man who, when he 
talks to others about Christ, and tries to lead 
them to Christ, can say : "I myself know this 
Christ; I have experienced His grace; I know 
in my own heart what a precious Saviour He 
is;" that man, in this his ability thus to speak 
from personal experience, will speak with a 
power which otherwise he could not possibly 
possess ; and he also, because of this power, 
will be the means of leading many to Jesus. 

But once more : 

5. This Consciousness of our Acceptance 
with God is invaluable in view of Death and 
of the Future Life which is before us all. 

It disarms Death of its terrors, and takes 
42 



, Joy in the Divine Government. 

away all fear of meeting God in Judgment. 
It fills the future with light, and hope, and 
causes the soul to feel that dying is but going 
home. Assured of its acceptance with God 
the soul, in a dying hour, can sing. 

Blessed, then, for all these reasons, is the 
man who has this Witness of the Holy 
Spirit, within his own heart that he is a Child 
of God. Blessed is any one, whether man or 
woman or little child, who, moved by the 
Holy Ghost, and in humble obedience to the 
Inspired Word, has, in penitence and faith, 
gone to the Siloam Pool of the Saviour's 
blood, and has there washed, and is now able, 
out of his own undoubting Consciousness, 
and as the deep Conviction of his own indi- 
vidual Experience, to say, in the clear con- 
fidence of this healed and glad blind man: 
"Many things about this Christ and about 
Christianity I do not know; but one thing 
I do know: — I once was blind, but now 
I see, and it was He, Jesus the Christ, who 
made me thus to see. All glory to His Name 
for what He has done for my soul." 
43 



GOD'S ANGELS MEETING 
US IN THE WAY. 

TEXT. 

"And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of 
God met him." — Genesis xxxii, i. 

For twenty-one years Jacob had been an 
exile in the land of Padan Aram. They had 
been years of many and strange vicissitudes. 
They were marked by numerous and pain- 
ful experiences. But the experiences, through 
which God thus, in these years, led him, had 
proved a blessing to him. He had been 
brought to repentance of the great wrong, 
both against his father and brother, which he 
had committed. He had been chastened into 
a new and holier character. He was no 
longer Jacob, the Deceiver, "the Supplanter," 
but he was now Israel, a spiritual Prince, 
having power both with God and with men. 

By divine command, he was now return- 
ing to his native land ; going back to the old 
44 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

home, whence, twenty-one years before, he 
had fled to escape the rage of Esau whom 
he had so grossly wronged. God, we read, 
had said unto him : "Return unto thy coun- 
try and to thy kindred, and I will deal well 
with thee." 

Thus journeying, and having with him his 
household and all his possessions, he came 
into the neighborhood of the little brook 
called Jabbok, east of the river Jordan. It 
was to him a time of deep and anxious 
thought; a moment of great perplexity and 
fear. Not far from where he thus was, Esau, 
his brother, resided, the head now of a great 
and warlike tribe, and remembering, doubt- 
less, the old wrong which Jacob had done 
him. 

Thinking of all this, and fearing not only 
for his own life, but especially for the lives 
of his loved ones, Jacob was filled w r ith fore- 
bodings of impending evil, and trembled lest 
he and his be together destroyed. 

But God's eye was on him. God was his 
keeper. God's "Angels" were sent to him, to 
preserve him in this hour of his peril; to be 
45 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

his defenders ; to comfort him in his sorrow ; 
to guide him safely through the danger to 
which he was thus exposed. "And Jacob 
went on his way, and the angels of God met 
him." And when Jacob saw them he said : 
"This is God's host;" and he called the name 
of that place "Mahanaim ;" that is two hosts. 

All this, at first thought, impresses us as 
an unusual and singular occurrence. To read 
that God's Angels thus met Jacob, as he 
journeyed there on the way, and became as 
it were a divine body-guard all around him, 
to keep him, this seems, at first, strange and 
remarkable. And yet it is really not an un- 
usual occurrence. It is something which is 
happening all the time; happening to each 
one of us, as much as here to Jacob ; happen- 
ing not once only, but often and constantly. 

Like Jacob we are all journeying; journey- 
ing towards eternity. Like Jacob we come also 
here and there, in this journey of life which 
we are making, to certain perilous and crit- 
ical points : to the "crossings" of certain dan- 
gerous streams, like the stream Jabbok or 
the river Jordan, "crossings" where we are 
46 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

in greatest peril of being overcome by spir- 
itual foes, and crushed by the evils and ills 
of life. And like Jacob, we are also at such 
times, met, and helped, and defended, and 
often saved by the angels of God. 

God's angels are probably thus even bod- 
ily and literally round about us, as our help- 
ers and defenders. It becomes us, I know, 
to speak modestly upon this point, and not 
to announce as a positive Scripture dogma 
that which the Scriptures have not thus with 
absolute dogmatic positiveness announced. 
And yet, on the other hand, we must not 
forget that neither do the Scriptures deny 
as a fact such literal and bodily angelic pres- 
ence and ministry. They leave it to us at 
least as an open question. Personally I in- 
cline to accept it. 

We do not, I know, as Jacob here did, see 
the angels of God about us or hear them 
speak, or catch visions of their radiant forms, 
as they are round about us. But still, of the 
real, literal nearness and presence of God's 
angels, at least occasionally, in any great emer- 
47 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

gency or crisis in our life time as God's chil- 
dren here on earth, I do not doubt. They 
were, I know, thus really and visibly here, 
at the crossing of Jabbok, with Jacob; with 
Elisha at Dothan ; with Hagar in the wilder- 
ness ; with Peter in the prison ; with Paul in 
the storm at sea ; with the dying beggar Laz- 
arus at the gate of the Rich Man ; with Jesus, 
the Master, at His advent, in His temptation, 
in His Agony, at His Resurrection, at His 
Ascension. 

And why not, then, I would ask, really and 
literally, although invisibly, also with us, the 
children of God? Does not God's Word say 
that "they are ministering spirits, sent forth 
to minister to those who are the heirs of sal- 
vation?" Does it not assure us that "angels 
of the Lord campeth round about the right- 
eous and delivereth them ?" Does not Christ 
also declare concerning little children "that 
in heaven their angels do always behold the 
face of my Father which is in heaven?" Do 
we not read that "there is joy in the presence 
of the angels of God over one sinner that re- 
penteth?" Was it not an "angel of the 
48 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Lord" that on Mount Moriah addressed 
Abraham ; that rebuked Balaam ; that ap- 
peared to Manoah ; that encouraged Gideon ; 
that communed with Joshua; that made an- 
nunciation of the Saviour's birth to Mary; 
that appeared to Joseph? Is not the Scrip- 
ture full of recitals of angelic visits to our 
earth ; of angelic interviews, and angelic min- 
istries to God's people? What reason to as- 
sume that all this angelic "ascending and 
descending/' spoken of so often in Scripture, 
has wholly ceased? Where bas God inti- 
mated that angelic visitors no longer come 
to our earth? Why should they not now, in 
critical hours of our life, as well as in the 
life-time of saints of old, come, and, invisi- 
bly, yet mightily, comfort and strengthen 
and guide us? Why put heaven all at once 
so far away? Why thus sunder the com- 
munion between the church above and the 
church below ? No ; No ! The poet, I be- 
lieve, is right when he says : 

"Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth 

unseen 
Both when we wake and when we sleep." 

49 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Literally and really, then, I believe, that as 
there, at the Jordan, they met Jacob, and 
helped him through his peril, and brought 
him on his way, so do God's Angels from 
heaven, sent to us by our Heavenly Father, 
now meet us, and help us in our times of 
crisis and special need. Why not? 

Figuratively, however, we certainly may 
apply these words of our text to ourselves. 
For everything that comes to us in life is 
really, if we but know it, "an angel, a mes- 
senger, a providence, of God." Nothing, as 
we know, comes to us outside of the circle 
of His "Providence"; nothing that He does 
not either wisely permit or cause. So that 
we can truthfully sing: 

"In each event of life how clear 

Thy ruling hand I see; 
Each blessing to my soul more dear 

Because bestowed by Thee." 

We do not always, I know, thus recognize 

the experiences of life as angels sent to us 

from God. They often do not, at first seem 

to us like angels at all; much less like God's 

50 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

angels. They seem to us something else and 
less than God. In our spiritual blindness 
and practical atheism, we call them by other 
names. We speak of them as mere "occur- 
rences," "accidents," "chances," "happen- 
ings," "incidents" only of our life. But still 
rightly interpreted, every event and every 
experience in our life is nevertheless a ver- 
itable "angel of God." God's Providence is 
with us all and over us all, in all our ways. 

Illustrations of this angelic ministry 
abound in the life of each one of us. All 
along in the line of our past history, as we, 
in our later years, review it, we can see cer- 
tain places, and certain critical points, where 
these good angels of God met us, and talked 
to us, and helped us on in our way. 

Around the Virgin and Child Jesus, in Ra- 
phael's Madonna, the air, you remember, is 
represented as being full of attendant guar- 
dian angels. So also around us, and around 
every Christian, there are doubtless multi- 
tudes of these same angelic ministers ; call 
them by what name you will, "angels," "prov- 
idences," "laws," "miracles ;" but divine agen- 
5i 



joy in the Divine Government. 

cies they all are, of some kind; by which, 
and in which, God met us, here or there, in 
the pathway of life, and gave shape and di- 
rection to our history different from what it 
otherwise would have been. 

The mountain at Dothan was full of horses 
and chariots of fire round about Elisha: an- 
gels of God, a great host, ready to defend 
and help him in the peril which threatened 
him. And did also defend and help him. 

Thus surrounded by angelic hosts, by pro- 
tecting and guiding and helping agencies of 
God, are we, at every step of our path-way 
of life. Like Elisha's servant, our eyes often 
have been closed, and we have failed to see 
them, even with the eye of faith. But still 
they have been ever with us, and have met 
us in the way. 

Once, for example, you were young. Life 
spread itself out in beautiful and attractive 
prospect before you. You had early decided 
what your course in life would be. You 
would be this, you would make of yourself 
this or that, you would fill this or that posi- 
tion, your plans were all fixed, your way of 
52 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

life was all marked out, and you were, like 
Jacob, "going on in the way." 

But, as you were thus going on in the way, 
something happened which at once changed 
your whole course, which gave to your life 
a wholly new turn, which led you out in an 
an entirely different direction from that in 
which you before were. It was a little thing 
perhaps in itself that thus changed the cur- 
rent of your life, a mere "accident," or 
"chance," seemingly, something which you 
at the time thought little or nothing about, 
but which now, in looking back upon it, you 
can easily see was the factor or the unseen 
power which determined your whole after 
course of life, and which really led you to 
become what and who and where you to-day 
are. 

That seemingly little incident which thus 
befell you, and thus determined your life- 
course, was, however, no chance work; no 
accident merely; no mere human agency; 
but it was one of God's angels. As here the 
Angels of God met Jacob, so the Angels of 
God met you there in the way. You had come 
53 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

to one of life's crossings, you needed direc- 
tion, the choice you would have made, if 
left to yourself, would not have tended to 
your highest good, and so the Angels came 
to you ; came in the form of some mere oc- 
currence or incident of life, and led you in 
a different and better way. "There is a Di- 
vinity shapes our ends ; rough hew them as 
we will." "Man proposes but God disposes. " 
"The way of man is not in himself; it is not 
in man that walketh to direct his steps." 

Take, however, another illustration. At 
some point or period of your past 
life, you were in great danger of mak- 
ing moral shipwreck of yourself. You 
were a young man. You had fallen into cer- 
tain company which would soon have led 
you astray. You were beginning certain hab- 
its which would soon have proved your 
ruin. It was a critical moment in your moral 
history. It was one of your life's decisive 
crossings; a moral pivot, upon which hung 
your whole subsequent character, your des- 
tiny for this life and the next. But God's 
Angels met you. In the form of "Con- 
54 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

science" speaking to you; or of "Memory" 
recalling the words often spoken by a pious 
father or mother; or in the kind interest 
taken in you by some Christian friend; or in 
some other form, God's Angels came to 
you, meeting you there in the way, warning 
you and turning you aside from the preci- 
pice of moral ruin upon whose brink you 
then stood. 

And, by these angels of God, thus meeting, 
and warning, and revealing to you your dan- 
ger, your peril, you were saved. You drew 
back. You broke away from the tempta- 
tion. You began another and better life. 
A gentleman recently told me that, when a 
young man, tempted by companions, he was 
once induced to enter a drinking saloon and 
call for liquor. The strong drink was poured 
out. It sparkled in the tumbler or cup before 
him. He took it up. He was in the act of 
putting it to his lips and drinking it. It was 
his first glass. But, as he raised it, and was 
thus about to drink it, his eye looked into it, 
and there, reflected from the face of that 
liquor, looking up as it were, from the bot- 
55 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

torn of the glass, he saw, as plainly as could 
be, the pleading face, or image, of his sainted 
mother. At once he again set it down. He 
left it untasted, his first and also* his last 
glass. God's Angels had met him. They had 
shown him his danger, and saved him. 

And so with many. They are going into 
the ways of sin; they are already far gone 
on the way; utterly worldly, wicked, living 
without God in the world, unconcerned for 
their salvation, hastening onward thought- 
less and unprepared towards eternity. 

But now the Angels of God meet them in 
the way. The Angel, for example, of reflec- 
tion, the Angel of God's Word, the Angel 
of the Holy Spirit, the Angel of the Gospel 
Ministry, the Angel of Awakening, and Con- 
viction, and Prayer, and repentance, and 
Faith. These all "meet him," as he walks 
there in the way of death, lead him to think, 
make him stop, show him his guilt and peril, 
direct him to Christ, and save him. 

Thus God's Angels are probably meeting 
and speaking to some wayward and wander- 
ing souls here, in the sanctuary now. Prob- 
56 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ably some who are now here, have under 
temptation gone down into the very depths of 
sin, and have gotten far away from God; 
and now, as they sit here in God's House, and 
the truth is preached, the Angel of God's 
Holy Spirit, the Angel of an Awakened Con- 
science, the Angel of Conviction and Re- 
pentance, these "Angels" of God are here 
meeting them, and tenderly remonstrating 
with them, and pleading with them to come 
back again to God, to accept Christ, to be 
saved. Is it so? Are there such convicted 
souls here, this evening, in this House of 
God? To all such, if there be any, let me 
urgently say: "Hear what these Angels of 
God thus say to you. Obey their loving 
exhortation. Do what they bid you. It is 
for the salvation of your own soul that they 
thus plead. Hear, therefore, and live. 

But, God's Angels meet us in other forms. 
Sometimes they meet us in the form of direct 
Providences. We are walking on in life, all 
absorbed in present things : our affections 
and thoughts wholly given up to the gain 
57 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

and pleasures of this world, forgetful of the 
great and eternal hereafter, and in danger, 
therefore, of losing our souls. 

Then, to save us, God's Angels come to 
us. They meet us in the way. 

The name of the Angel that thus meets us 
may be "Sickness." It takes us away from 
the busy scenes of the world. It shuts us 
up for awhile in retirement. It makes us 
hold still and think upon our condition. It 
talks to us. It tells us anew all about God, 
and about the Saviour, and about our Sins, 
and our Souls, and our duty. It saves us. 

Or, the Angel that thus meets us may per- 
haps bear the name of "Adversity." Riches 
may take to themselves wings and fly away. 
Enemies may rise up against us. Friends 
may forsake us. Business enterprises may 
disappoint us. All things may go against 
us. Our way may be all shut up against us. 
It is one of God's Angels in the way. He is 
sent to show us the vanity of earth ; the folly 
of living only for this life; the duty of set- 
ting our affections on things above. 

Or, once more, the name of the Angel that 
58 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

thus meets us in the way, may, perhaps, be 
Bereavement. Death perhaps enters your 
home. Your loved one is taken away from 
you. The vacant chair, the silent instru- 
ment,, the unoccupied chamber, all remind 
you of your painful loss. Your heart is sad 
and almost crushed under the blow. But it 
is an Angel of God that has, in that hour 
of bereavement, come to your home. It is 
all the dealing with you of Divine Love. It 
is the visit to you of a heavenly messenger : 
a messenger whom God has sent to soften 
your heart, to lead you to think of death 
and of the life to come, to lift your affections 
away from earth to heaven and to the better 
and glorious things of Eternity. 

But, at such times, we have, also, other 
angelic visitors. God's Angels of Comfort 
also meet us in the way. Bereaved and brok- 
en-hearted, weeping and walking in dark- 
ness, Messengers of Divine Consolation, An- 
gels of Heavenly Grace also then wing their 
way to us, to solace us and to console us in 
our grief. And blessed are the lessons which 
they then whisper to us : lessons of the Wis- 
59 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

dom of God, and of the love of God, in all 
His sore dealings with us : lessons, also, of 
submission, of trust, of hope ; breathing a 
sweet spirit of resignation into our souls, 
calming our agitated emotions, healing our 
wounded spirits, clearing our vision, and 
enabling us to look out through and beyond 
the darkness around us, and there, in the 
light of God's love, and in the light of Eter- 
nity to see that it is all right and good. 
Blessed be God for these dear comforting 
Angels that thus when we journey in sor- 
row, "meet us in the way," and then thus 
point us upward to "the Better Life." 

''Though strange and winding seems the 
way, 
While yet on earth I dwell, 

In heaven my heart shall gladly say, 
Thou, God, dost all things well." 
But, once more : these "Angels of God" 

come to us sometimes also in the form only 
of a good thought, of a better desire or feel- 
ing, than before possessed us. A man, for 
example, living in sin, or in religious indiffer- 
60 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ence, all at once, is filled with a strange dis- 
satisfaction with himself, an inexplicable un- 
rest of soul, an overpowering sense of the 
emptiness of the life he is living, an inextin- 
guishable longing after something holier and 
better than he now has, a deep, inner yearn- 
ing after God, and after that which is good. 
He cannot account for his feelings. They 
come over him, he says, almost against his 
will. When he is alone, when he is awake at 
night, often, indeed, right in the midst of his 
course of sin, they come unbidden over him, 
and he feels himself, like the Prodigal, 
strangely drawn to arise and go back to his 
forsaken Father and God. 

Whence come such better thoughts as 
these? Why does he feel thus? Simply, I 
answer, because then the good "Angels of 
God" are meeting him in the way, and are 
trying to save him. Simply because then 
God Himself, by the Angel of the Holy 
Spirit, is speaking to him. 

Thus is our life, full of these Angelic Vis- 
itants. To us as to Jacob, God's Host come, 
as we journey in life's way, to check, divert, 
61 



joy in the Divine Government. 

direct, guard, strengthen, comfort, help, save 
us. 

Learn to look for and see an angel of God 
in everything that befalls us in life. "God's 
Angels," as we have seen, come to us dis- 
guised. They do not always openly declare 
and show themselves as angels of God. Let 
us then, try to discover them. Let us seek 
in every experience of life to find them out. 
Let us look for these hidden and veiled mes- 
sengers of God : in every joy, in every sor- 
row, in every prosperity, in every adversity, 
in every turn and new experience of life. Do- 
ing so, cultivating the habit of doing so, we 
will also, constantly, along life's pathway, 
find them. We will discover them, day after 
day, all around us : going before us, hover- 
ing over us, the very Host of God, Mahan- 
aim, encamping round about us and doing 
us good. And what a charm, what a spiritual 
sweetness, what a blessed divine communion 
and fellowship, what a joyous feeling of se- 
curity and comfort, what a precious bringing 
down of heaven to earth, this consciousness 
of God's Angels, yea, of God Himself, being 
62 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

thus all around us, all this would throw over 
our life ! Let us try it. And thus let us 
make our life here full of the angelic fellow- 
ship and full of companionship with God 
Himself. Says Dr. Charles Hodge, "As far 
back as I can remember, I had the habit of 
thanking God for everything I received, and 
of asking Him for everything that I wanted. 
If I lost a book or any one of my playthings, 
I prayed that I might find it. I prayed walk- 
ing along the streets, in school and out of 
school, whether playing or studying. I did 
not do this in obedience to any prescribed 
rule — it seemed natural. I thought of God 
as an everywhere present being, full of kind- 
ness and love, who would not be offended 
if children talked to Him." We here learn, 
also, 

How submissive under all life's afflictions, 
in view of this truth, we should all be. Nay, 
how joyful we should even be. For what are 
the afflictions of life ? They are only the An- 
gels of God — sent down to chasten us into 
holiness ; to purify us from earth's dross and 
fit us for heaven. Thus, then, let us regard 
63 



I 

Joy in the Divine Government. 

them, and not only submit to them, but even 
rejoice in them, knowing that they work out 
for us "a far more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory." And once more, we learn 
yet this lesson, namely, 

The duty of promptly following all these 
good leadings of God's Angels. These good 
thoughts within us; these ministrations of 
Grace and Providence, brought thus to bear 
upon us ; these angelic and divine drawings 
of our souls heavenward, these, my hearers, 
follow. These obey. They come to you in 
love. They are God's angels, meeting you in 
the way, in order to save you. Follow them. 
Follow Conscience; follow the Word of 
God; follow the blessed Holy Spirit; follow 
the leadings of Providence. They are all 
white-robed "Angels of God." Follow them. 



64 



CONCERNING OUR TEMPT- 
ATIONS. 

TEXT. 
"And lead us not into temptation" — Matthew vi. ij. 

It is well, right at the commencement of 
our remarks, to notice that in this petition: 
"And lead us not into temptation," our Sav- 
iour does not teach us to pray for exemption 
from temptation, or that we may never at all 
be tempted. For this, in the first place, would 
be to pray for something which, under the 
circumstances, would be a moral impossibil- 
ity. Being what man is, viz., ia free moral 
agent, and living as he does, in a world full 
of every species of sin, and above all, being 
accessible by Satan, the great Author of all 
moral evil, man cannot otherwise than be 
subject to temptation. It is incidental to his 
very character and condition. It grows nec- 
essarily from the very constitution of his be- 
ing. His very liberty of will, his moral free- 
dom, his very power of choosing, demands 
temptation ; demands it in order to give that 
65 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

liberty opportunity to exercise itself, and in 
order to test that capacity to choose, and 
thus reveal innate moral character. Total 
exemption from temptation is, therefore, in 
the nature of the case, to man as a free moral 
agent, an absolute moral impossibility. 

But, even if total exemption from tempta- 
tion were possible, it is manifestly not de- 
sirable. For who would wish to be deprived 
of the noble freedom to choose either good 
or evil, with which God has created us ? Who 
would desire that that liberty of will, which 
elevates him above irrational creation, and 
which allies him to angels, to God, and im- 
mortality, should be blotted out, and that he 
should be reduced to the level of the brute 
in the order of being, and be controlled only 
by instinct or by mere arbitrary law? Who, 
in a word, would not rather be in this respect 
just what God has made him, viz. capable 
of being tempted, and capable of sinning, 
and capable even of eternally perishing, rath- 
er than to be, like the irrational animal, or 
like the tree, or rock, or flower, or bird, in- 
capable of intelligent choice and self-determi- 
66 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

nation. No one. We all feel that our very 
revelation of the dignity and elevation of our 
superiority in the scale of being, that it is a 
revelation of the dignity and elevation of our 
moral natures, that it is a picture to us and 
to the universe, of the image and likeness of 
God himself in which he created us, and we 
rejoice in it. 

Christ, then, does not here teach us to 
ask in prayer that we may never be tempted, 
we may feel sure, for this would be no bless- 
ing but an injury to us. Temptation is moral 
discipline ; is a means to the production of a 
virtuous and pious character, and is, there- 
fore, a necessary help to Salvation. And 
hence Jesus, in His "intercessory prayer" re- 
corded in John 17, does not pray that His 
disciples may be "taken out of the world," 
i. e. away from all possibility of temptation 
to evil, but He only prays that they may be 
kept from the power of the evil that is in the 
world. 

And, right here, it may be well to note 
that, being as he is and forever also will 
continue to be, viz., a free moral agent, man 
67 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

always will possess this capacity of being 
tempted, and hence the ability also, if left to 
himself, of sinning. Adam possessed it in 
Eden, and, tempted by Satan, yielded and 
fell. Satan, an exalted angel, being free, pos- 
sessed it even in Heaven, and even there he 
had within himself, and unseduced to it from 
without, the power of originating sin; of 
tempting and destroying himself. Even in 
Heaven itself then, if left to himself, and not 
kept by the special Grace or Power of God, 
man may be tempted, and sin, and perish. 
But he will not there be left to himself. He 
will there be kept both from being tempted 
and sinning. But his safety will not lie in 
the place, nor in the surroundings of the 
redeemed Souls, nor in the superior strength 
of moral character, or virtue, or holiness, 
which in himself he will then possess, but in 
the preserving Grace of Christ, of which, 
throughout all Eternity, he will, be, as he is 
now, the recipient. By that he will be kept 
so that, even in Heaven, every redeemed 
Soul will forever have occasion, with adoring 
gratitude, to exclaim: "I am saved, saved 
68 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

from falling, as Satan once, even here in 
Heaven, fell; but saved only by Grace. I 
live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And 
the life which I now live, I live by the Faith 
of the Son of God, who loved me and gave 
Himself for me." 

Our blessed Redeemer, in this petition: 
"And lead us not into temptation," means, 
we may now remark, to teach us to pray that 
we may not be overcome with temptation. 
It is a prayer not against the existence but 
against the power of temptation. It is an 
acknowledgment to God of our own moral 
weakness, of the might and malignity of our 
spiritual foes, and of the consciousness of 
danger if left to battle with sin in our own 
unaided strength. It is saying to Him : "Oh 
God, abandon us not to temptation; leave 
us not alone to meet it. Be Thou, the Al- 
mighty One, our shelter and refuge and help 
in the midst of it. Lead us safely and tri- 
umphantly through it." This is the mean- 
ing of the petition, "And lead us not into 
temptation." 

The language of our text, at first view, 
69 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

seems to imply that God is the Author of our 
temptations; that it is He that leads us into 
them. But God never allures any one to sin. 
He acts the part of tempter to no one. He 
is holy. He everywhere forbids, condemns, 
punishes and declares His hatred against sin 
He is not, nor can He be, in any way either 
the author of approver of sin. And, ever 
since sin has entered the universe, He has 
done everything compatible with His own 
perfections, and with man's freedom, to re- 
strain, suppress, abolish it. And hence, in 
the language of Saint James : "let no man, 
when he is tempted, say, I am tempted of 
God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, 
neither tempted He any man." 

God, then, is not the source of our tempta- 
tions. He lead's no one into them. They 
spring from our own depraved natures. They 
come to us from the world of sin around us. 
They originate especially with Satan, the 
dark Prince of the Power of the Air; the 
malignant Spirit that now, and always, 
"worketh in the children of disobedience." 
These are the sources of our temptations. 
70 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

But, while God is not the author of our 
temptations, He yet permits them. Sin, 
Satan, and our own lusts, God permits to be 
sources of temptation. These He suffers to 
exist as tempters to us, in order by them to 
reveal and develop each man's true char- 
acter ; in order to show to him and to others 
just what is in the human heart; in order 
to test his virtue; in order to prove him. 
For who knows himself until tempta- 
tion and trial of character show 
him what he is, what wickedness he 
is capable of, what latent depravity lies 
buried within his heart. Look, for example, 
over History, and see how men that were 
supposed, by themselves and by others, to be 
models of virtue and integrity of character, 
when once they were brought into positions 
and places of trial or temptation, revealed a 
character just the reverse. Solomon, for in- 
stance, was a very different man in the early 
part of his reign from what he was in those 
voluptuous after-periods of his history dur- 
ing which he brought such reproach iupon 
the throne. Nero was a very different man 
7* 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

while he was the pupil of Seneca, from what 
he was in those days when he was Emperor 
of Rome. Hazael, the subject, was a very 
different man from Hazael, the prince. How 
different Mary, the youthful Queen of Eng- 
land, the translator of the Gospels, the sup- 
posed humble and pious Christian, from 
Mary, the cruel persecutor of the Church, 
the hater of Protestantism, tand the one 
whom history has handed down to the hor- 
ror of succeeding ages under the dread appel- 
lation of "Bloody Mary." And see Robes- 
pierre, at first, and when yet untried, regard- 
ed by all as even feminine in the tenderness 
of his nature, so sensitive to the sufferings 
of his fellowmen that he resigned a lucrative 
office, rather than condemn a culprit to the 
gallows, and yet afterward, when once he 
held the reins of supreme power, and there 
was naught to restrain, him, how he proved 
himself to be a very incarnation of cruelty, 
filling all Paris and France with blood. And 
so with men everywhere. And so it is with 
all of us.. We do not know ourselves, not 
one of us, until we are tempted and our 
72 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

character tried. The strength of the Forest- 
oak is unknown until the hurricane sweeps 
around it, and with its mighty breath of 
storm, wrestles with it. The power of the 
bridge that spans the river is unknown until 
that river, swollen suddenly by heavy rains, 
rises and sweeps its mad currents down upon 
it. And just so no man's virtue, no man's 
moral strength, no man's piety, no man's 
honesty or purity, is known, or can be 
known, either to himself or to others, until 
temptations test him, and prove him, and re- 
veal him just as he is. Hence the duty of 
humility. Hence the duty, also, of charity 
towards those that fall. 

Whilst God then, is not the author of temp- 
tations, He yet permits them, and by them 
He suffers man to exercise his free agency, 
gives him an opportunity to develop a vir- 
tuous character, and thus subjects him to 
that moral discipline which tests his alle- 
giance to God, and his meetness for Heaven. 

And hence, since all men need tempta- 
tions, all men also have their temptations, 
and every man also has his own peculiar 
73 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

temptations. We may imagine, and I sup- 
pose we all often do imagine, that our condi- 
tion is one of special trial, and that, if we 
could only occupy our neighbor's place, and 
be subject to his temptations and trials, we 
should live much better moral and christian 
lives. But this is all delusion. Temptations 
and trials are the lot of every human being. 
The rich man has his special temptations. 
Wrapped round with ease, flushed with 
wealth, and supplied with abundance, he is 
tempted to forget his dependence upon God, 
to waste his life in splendid idleness, to weak- 
en his soul by indulgence in luxury, and to 
become vain and inflated with pride. And so 
has the poor man his special temptations. As 
many everywhere well know poverty has its 
trials : its fretful cares, its gloomy distrusts, 
its painful sense of weakness, its social bit- 
terness, its tendency to discontent, to envy, 
to repining against the government of God. 
And so has the business man his peculiar 
temptations : his haste to grow rich, his prov- 
ocations with unprincipled competition, his 
trials with employees, his exhausting worries, 
74 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

his perplexing cares, his close and hot con- 
tacts with selfishness in himself and others. 
And so has the scholar or student his pecul- 
iar temptations: his perplexing doubts, his 
sceptical suggestions, his pride of intellect, 
his selfish thirst for earthly fame. And even 
old age has its temptations, and its peculiar 
sins. The sinners of the Bible are not by 
any means all young sinners. Many of them 
were well on in years. Solomon is a noted 
example. So is Noah; so is Lot; so is Da- 
vid. Paul and Barnabas were not boys when 
they quarreled. The prophet who led the 
young prophet to disobey God, was an old 
prophet. And so I repeat, has each man his 
own peculiar spiritual trials. So are all con- 
ditions, and all places, and all employments 
in life and all periods of life, beset with tempt- 
ations. And if anyone, therefore, thinks that 
by changing his condition in life he will free 
himself from this exposure to temptation, he 
makes a great mistake. For, let his condi- 
tion in life be what it will, let his sphere or 
place be where it will, there temptations will 
also follow him, and assail him, and there 
75 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

will he still have need to cry : "And lead us 
not into temptation." 

It may also be noticed that not only will 
every man have his temptations, but every 
man also will have them in his weakest point. 
Where the wall of the besieged fortress is 
weakest, there the guns are made to pour 
their fiercest volleys of shot; and where the 
ranks of the marshalled army are most 
thinned, there the charging columns most 
concentrate and seek to gain the victory. 
And so in each man's weakest moral point, 
(and there is such a weakest point in every 
man's nature) Satan, and the world, and his 
own depravity, most violently assail him and 
seek to overcome him. And hence the great 
importance of each man thoroughly knowing 
himself, and, where he is weakest, there also 
rally his strongest defensive moral forces and 
there exercise his greatest vigilance. 

And yet men also often fail where they are 
strongest. Elijah, on Carmel, was an ex- 
ponent of courage; soon he lies there under 
the juniper-tree, an exponent of despair. 
John was the disciple of love; yet, in wrath 
76 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

he asks Christ to call down fire upon the 
Samaritan village which had refused to re- 
ceive them. David was eminent for personal 
holiness ; and yet he goes down, under temp- 
tation, into basest sensuality. Moses was 
noted for his meekness; and yet how angry 
he became. Solomon was renowned for his 
wisdom; and yet, in his later life, how fool- 
ishly he behaved. 

These extremes, visible in human life, teach 
us not to put too much trust in ourselves, 
but to trust in God's restraining and sustain- 
ing Grace only. 

But what, let us now ask^ is the measure of 
the extent of our responsibility in connection 
with our temptations? It is determined, I 
answer, by our own voluntary moral 
attitude towards them and our own 
personal disposal of them. It is no 
sin to be tempted, but it is sin to harbor 
temptation; to cherish it lovingly in our 
hearts, to yield to it, to obey it. There is 
where the sin begins. As another has said : 
"We cannot hinder the birds from flying over 
our heads, but we can hinder them from 
77 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

building their nests in our hair." And so we 
cannot prevent temptation from assailing 
ufs, but we can, by God's Grace, prevent it 
from injuring us. We can battle against it, 
we can resist it, we can say as Jesus said : 
"Get thee behind me Satan, for thou savor- 
est not the things that be of God." We are 
not responsible for our temptations no more 
than Jesus was when He was tempted, until 
we yield to them; until, in our hearts, we 
cherish them, or love them, or desire them, 
and thus voluntarily make them our own. 
This is a great comforting fact. Let us not 
forget it. Let no tempted soul, therefore, 
that earnestly battles against evil thoughts 
and suggestions of his heart, be troubled 
with the fear that, because he is thus tempted 
he is no Christian. Temptations in them- 
selves prove nothing, as regards personal 
character, one way or the other. It is the 
disposal which a man makes of his tempta- 
tions, which shows what he is, which proves 
whether he is a Christian or not. And hence 
the very fact that we do resist temptations to 
sin; that our wills refuse to yield to them; 
78 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

that, as Christians, we pray and weep and 
war against them; all this is proof of Grace 
within us, and is evidence that we are Chris- 
tians ; disciples of that Savour who was Him- 
self "tempted in all points even as we are, 
yet without sin/' And, being thus an evi- 
dence of a work of Grace, we ought, as the 
Apostle says : "count it all joy when we fall 
into divers temptations," knowing that temp- 
tations prove us, develop us, strengthen us; 
and remembering that temptation itself is no 
sin ; that simply to be tempted does not make 
us guilty ; and that it is only when we adopt 
the temptation, approve of it, love it, yield to 
it, only then it becomes ours, and only then 
we become guilty. 

The means of overcoming temptation, or 
the means of avoiding being overcome by it, 
which God has placed within our power, are, 
I may now yet, in conclusion, remark, vari- 
ous. 

a. The first and best means of all, if pos- 
sible, is to avoid meeting temptation. Our 
duty is, neither to be nor go nor stay any- 
where where temptation will be likely to as- 
79 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

sail us. For to go into the way of sin is real- 
ly to tempt ourselves; and then if we thus 
throw ourselves into the way of temptation, 
it is not the Devil or the world that tempts 
us, but we ourselves become the tempters 
of ourselves. 

In order, then, to avoid temptation, unless 
duty calls you, go not in the way of tempta- 
tion. Control your eyes. Rule your ears. 
Govern your feet. Bridle your tongue. Curb 
your passions. Say to them all : "Enter not 
into the path of the wicked; go not in the 
way of evil men; avoid it, pass not by it, 
turn away from it, and pass away." This is 
the especial safety of the young. Thus avoid 
the theatre, the billiard room, the gaming 
table, the liquor saloon, the evil companion, 
the bad book. Touch not, taste not, handle 
not; see not, hear not; then only are you 
safe. "Watch and pray, that ye enter not 
into temptation." 

b. A second great aid to overcome temp- 
tation is to cultivate an abiding sense of 
God's observing presence. 

The murderer, as with stealthy tread he 
80 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

creeps, at the still hour of midnight, towards 
his victim, forgets that God sees him. Did 
he but remember that, he would at once be 
moved to turn back from his crime. Did 
he but look up, and, in that lonely star 
that breaks through the rifted cloud above 
him, see, as he ought to see, the eye of Omni- 
science flashing down upon him; and hear, 
as he ought to hear, God's voice saying to 
him, "Thou shalt not kill;" at once his be- 
numbed conscience would awake, his bloody 
purpose would flee from his heart, and he 
would shrink from the commission of the 
dreadful deed. And so with all of us. We 
commit sin; we trifle with and yield to 
temptation; we indulge in evil thoughts and 
words and deeds, all because we forget that 
everywhere and always God is near us, that 
God sees and hears and knows us, and that 
God, according to our life now, will here- 
after judge and reward us. To be delivered 
from being overcome by temptation, let us 
all hourly then, with Hagar, remember, 
"Thou God seest me;" with Joseph, when 
tempted, let us think of God, and say : "How 
81 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

can I do this great evil and sin against 
God." 

c. A third means of avoiding being over- 
come by temptation, is watchfulness. Sol- 
diers, by watching for the foe, escape sur- 
prise and defeat. Sailors, by watching, 
escape the dangerous rocks. Firemen, by 
watching, perceive the first symptoms of the 
kindled and destroying flame. And so all 
who wish to escape being overcome by 
temptation, and especially by temptations to 
whatever is your besetting sins, must watch. 
You must be upon your constant guard. You 
must be vigilant against sin. Knowing your 
weakness, knowing the strength and skill of 
your foes, your eye must ever be open, your 
ear must be ever quick to detect the slight- 
est sound, and your hand jand tongue and 
heart must be ever in an attitude of brave 
and earnest defense. Remember the words 
of the Master: "What I say unto you, I 
say unto all, watch." And especially must 
we watch against little sins, beginnings of 
evil. 

d. A fourth aid by which to resist tempta- 
82 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

tion is a fullness of the Word of God. Thus 
fesus resisted temptation. In (response to 
each of Satan's assaults He quoted Scripture. 
His one answer to all the enemy's allure- 
ments was : "It is written." Like the Mas^ 
ter let us then, first of all, be full of God's 
Word; let us have it in our hearts and in 
our memories, and then, when temptations 
come, let us use it. Let us both have the 
Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of 
God, and know, when in Spiritual danger, 
how to handle it. There is nothing Satan is 
so helpless before as God's Word. Keep 
it well in heart and hand then, oh Christian, 
and with it "resist the Devil and he will flee 
from you." 

e. But, once more, another and last 
means, which I shall mention, by which we 
may avoid being overcome by temptation, is 
Prayer. 

In other words, we must do just what 
Jesus here in our text enjoins; viz., lift up 
our hearts and voices for spiritual help to 
God. We must cry out to Him : "And lead 
us not into temptation," i, e., "Give us Thy 
83 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

grace to resist temptation, to overcome it, 
and do not suffer us to be overcome by it. 
Allow us not to be tempted above that which 
we are able to bear, but with every tempta- 
tion, provide Thou also a way of escape." 
'Watch and pray," says Christ to every 
disciple of His, "lest ye enter into tempta- 
tion," i. e., enter into it voluntarily and are 
then overcome by it and fall into sin. And 
not only pray, He says, but watch also. Both 
watch and pray. By watching see your ap- 
proaching danger and be on the defensive 
against it. By praying secure to yourself 
God's Help in the conflict and victory over 
the temptation. 

Prayer, then, is the weapon of defense 
which Christ has forged and polished for us, 
and given to us, and with this glittering 
blade, grasped and held by the strong hand 
of Faith, we will always be able to put to 
flight all our foes, and to come off from 
every Spiritual conflict, more than conquer- 
ors. It is because we pray so little, that, be- 
ing tempted, we fall so often. It is because 
we so seldom implore God's assistance, and 
84 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

so seldom feel our weakness, and take to 
ourselves His omnipotent strength, that, like 
Peter, being tempted, we often deny the 
Lord that bought us ; fall into divers tempta- 
tions, and are often entangled in the snares 
of the Devil. It is thus we often wound the 
Saviour, reproach the church, and fill out 
own hearts with bitter grief; all because we 
do not pray to God, as Jesus enjoins, "And 
lead us not into temptation." Let us bear 
in mind then, Fellow Christians, that in order 
to overcome temptation, constant Divine 
Help is needed, and that this Divine Help 
can only be secured by constant and earnest 
Prayer. "Put on, therefore," as Paul ex- 
horts, "the whole armor of God: the shield 
of faith, the helmet of salvation, the breast- 
plate of righteousness, the sword of the 
Spirit which is the word of God ; praying al- 
ways with all prayer and supplication in 
the spirit, and watching thereunto with all 
perseverance and supplication." 

Thus arm yourselves, beloved, against 
temptation, and with these divine weapons 
wage bravely and unflinchingly the holy war- 
85 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

fare in which you are engaged, and then also 
will yours be a glorious victory over all your 
spiritual foes, and a triumphant welcome, 
at last, into the approving presence of your 
Lord in His celestial and eternal glory. 



86 



THE PROFITABLENESS OF 
GODLINESS. 

TEXT. 

"Godliness is profitable unto all things, having 
promise of the life that noiv is, and of that which is 
to come/' — i Timothy iv. 8. 

Our text speaks of two lives : of the one as 
"the life that now is," the life which here on 
earth, previous to death, we are at present liv- 
ing; and of the other as "the life which is to 
come," the eternal or unending life which 
awaits each one of us, after death, and beyond 
the present life. , 

These two lives stand most closely related to 
each other. The one is, indeed, but the begin- 
ning of the other ; and the second, or "the life 
to come," is only the projection, the unfolding, 
the fruitage of this life which now is. Accu- 
rately speaking, they are not, indeed, two lives, 
but only one life : one life lived on in two dif- 
ferent worlds, and in two different environ- 
ments and relationships, unbroken by death, 
87 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

to the immortal, running on in one unbroken 
current of character and of essential being 
through all eternity. Hence, the Scriptures 
unchanged by the transition from the mortal 
declare, as they do, that "whatsoever a man 
soweth," — soweth now, here in this life — 
"that also shall" that same man, as his own har- 
vest, "reap" in "the life to come." 

By the great mass of mankind, however, 
this truth of the essential oneness of these two 
lives, the one we now live and the one we will 
forever live hereafter, is not practically recog- 
nized as it should be. Men think of themselves 
and of their being and interests only within 
the narrow limits of this life that now is ; and 
they largely neglect, while here in this life, 
to live as they ought, for that other life "which 
is to come": to so mould their character or 
true inner spiritual being as to be prepared for 
that other or future life, and to make it for 
themselves all that God wishes them to make 
it, namely, an eternal life of joy, an immor- 
tality of bliss and of glory. 

This mistake of thus forgetting "the life to 
come," in our absorbed interest in the things 
88 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

of "the life which now is," our text, this morn- 
ing, seeks to correct. It exhibits, first of all, 
the close relationship, the unbroken oneness of 
these two lives ; and then, as its great practical 
lesson, it tells us how we may make ourselves 
happy in them both. By being godly, is its 
declaration, you will be happy, both now and 
in eternity. "Godliness is profitable unto all 
things, having promise of the life that now is, 
and of that which is to come." 

This is, indeed, a valuable truth. It is the 
secret of a happy life, not only now, but for- 
ever. It is a secret, therefore, worth knowing 
by every human being. For how to be happy, 
both in time and in eternity ; how to make the 
most of life, both now and forever, in all that 
is best for ourselves, for our fellowmen, for the 
welfare of society, and for the glory of God; 
how to attain, as the result of our living, these 
highest and most blessed ends of life — this is 
the one great question that confronts us all. 
Whether or not to live is not optional with us. 
Whether or not we will live eternally is not 
ours to choose. God has himself determined 
that for us. We do live ; and we will live im- 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

mortally. The only choice left to us is to de- 
cide how we will live; what we will live for; 
by what principles and moral motives we will 
govern ourselves in our living : what course in 
our life here we will mark out for ourselves, 
and what destiny, as the outcome of our life 
here we will achieve for ourselves in the life 
hereafter : for let us ever remember that our 
destiny eternally hereafter is being now deter- 
mined by each one for himself in the character 
which here he forms and in the life which here 
he lives. 

The declaration of our text is that Godliness 
or Holiness of Character and Life is "profit- 
able" to a man, to any man, both in this present 
life and in the eternal life to come. 

It declares, 

L That now, already in this life, god- 
liness IS PROFITABLE. 

This declaration of the profitableness of god- 
liness or piety in this present life is capable of 
being tested by experience. v To this test of 
experience let us submit. Doing so, what do 
we find? We find the declaration true in its 
90 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

fullest sense. For, in what respect, or in re- 
gard to what human interest, or what relation 
pertaining to man, either as an individual or 
in any of his organic or social relations, is 
Piety or Godliness not an advantage? In 
what single respect that can be named is it 
not profitable to him to be a Christian ? 

i. Even as regards the lowest part of our 
being, the merely physical, the Human Body, 
"Godliness is profitable." It inculcates tem- 
perance, self-respect, industry, cleanliness, mas- 
tery of appetite, moderation of passion, self- 
government in speech and temper, calmness of 
mind. It has regard, in a word, for all those 
laws of physical being which are the sure 
sources and promoters of health. Hence, as a 
mere "sanitary regulation/' as a rule by which 
"Boards of Health" might wisely, in large 
measure, be governed, Godliness, or the moral 
code of Piety, is profitable. Obedience to 
God's laws is always better for man physically 
than disobedience. For its mere physiological 
benefit it is better for him to observe, for exam- 
ple, the Divine Law concerning the Sabbath, 
or one day of rest in seven, than to violate it. 
9i 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Physiologists are universally agreed that men 
need, for purely physiological reasons, one 
day's rest out of seven. There is plenty of evi- 
dence upon this question, all pointing in the 
same direction, and the conclusion is inevitable 
that man cannot violate the law of the Sabbath 
without physically losing by it. One day of 
rest out of seven is a necessity to his best phy- 
sical being; and hence when he robs God of 
the day, he also robs himself of all the great 
mental and physical benefit which God, through 
the day, wished to confer upon him. 

2. Equally profitable is Godliness or Piety 
to the intellect of man. All things else being 
equal, Godliness is conducive to the highest 
possible mental results and to the best possible 
intellectual efforts. The moral and Christian 
man will always, even in regard to things tem- 
poral, in regard, for example, to mechanical 
work, or to special professional studies, or to 
some intricate financial problem, think more 
clearly and more correctly than will an equally 
endowed man intellectually who is immoral or 
un-Christian, or than would or could that same 
man if he were not a moral and Christian man. 
92 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

The good condition of body which he secures 
to himself by his piety will already largely help 
him to these higher and greater possibilities : 
for great is the help which comes to the mind 
from a healthy and clean and sound body. But, 
above all, God, in answer to prayer, also gives 
mental clearness and power to the good man 
and aids him to reach the mental results after 
which he seeks. Galileo, Columbus, Coperni- 
cus, Newton, Bacon, Kepler, Franklin, Morse, 
Field, and multitudes more, whose names are 
illustrious in the world of science and letters, 
were all men of prayer. Luther's famous 
aphorism is a true one : "To have prayed well 
is to have studied well." Or, as the Apostle 
James long ago put it : "If any man lack wis- 
dom, let him ask of God, who giveth unto all 
men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall 
be given him." 

Undoubtedly this is true. The mind, as well 
as the body, suffers through indulgence in sin ; 
and mind as well as body is kept healthy and 
is made strong, and is helped into its highest 
and best possible development by godliness, or 
by abstinence from indulgence in sin. 
93 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

3. But godliness is profitable., also, to suc- 
cess in what may be called a business career. 

In the long run, it always pays best, even in 
business, to be a good man. The reason is 
evident. Godliness, or piety, makes men sober, 
economical, prudent, generous, honest, just, 
industrious, kind, cheerful, obliging; all of 
which are essential elements to permanent and 
honorable business success; and the result of 
all this is the creation for themselves of a "rep- 
utation'' which will secure for them the con- 
fidence and patronage of hosts of their fellow- 
men. To be a good man and to be known as 
such, is about as fine a business capital, there- 
fore, as any one may want. 

Some years ago a young man, not far away 
from here, clerking in a store, refused to make 
a fraudulent entry by which his employers 
would have made several hundred dollars. He 
was dismissed. Seeking another situation, and 
being asked to give references, he referred to 
his former employers. And, strange to say, 
they gave him the best possible recommenda- 
tion, verbally adding that he was perhaps "a 
little too conscientious about trifles." That 
94 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

young man is to-day a partner in one of the 
largest firms in Boston. 

Yes ! Piety pays in business. Honesty is 
not only the best ethics, but it is also really the 
best policy. "A good name," as a business 
capital, "is rather to be chosen than great 
riches." Even men who are themselves unscru- 
pulous appreciate and want to deal with men 
who are scrupulous — men who have conscience 
and whom nothing can swerve from their in- 
tegrity. , 

Young men had better, once for all, learn this 
lesson, that genuine integrity of character, 
purity of morals, right living, loyalty to con- 
science : in a word, godliness, or the filial fear 
of God, is a factor of success in business, or in 
any avocation of life carried on between man 
and man. 

4. Especially, however, is godliness profit- 
able in the spiritual results which it secures to 
him who possesses it. 

How rich the gifts which it bestows upon 

him. It gives him quietness of conscience ; 

sense of security under the fatherly protection 

and love of God ; assurance of the pardon of 

95 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

his sins; peace of soul, through faith in the 
blood of Christ; support by divine grace in 
times of sorrow ; comfort from his trust in the 
Word of God; blessed joy in prayer and in 
the worship of God ; hope of eternal life after 
this present life. All these are spiritual gifts 
enjoyed by him who is truly a child of God; 
who possesses, in his character and life, this 
spiritual characteristic designated here In our 
text by this one significant word — "godliness." 
Reviewing, then, what we have now said: 
"Godliness/' already in this life, or in what 
pertains to us now, in our present existence, is 
"profitable." It is gain to us, in every way, 
all through our journey of life on earth, to 
be "godly." As Solomon, three thousand 
years ago already, wrote, so may we now say : 
"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom," (that 
is, piety, godliness, the fear of the Lord), "and 
the man that getteth understanding; for the 
merchandise of it is better than the merchan- 
dise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine 
gold. She is more precious than rubies, and 
all things that thou canst desire are not to be 
compared unto her. Length of days is in her 
96 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

right hand, and in her left hand, riches of 
honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness 
and all her paths are peace." 

Hence, even if this present life were our 
only life, if death ended all, if there were no 
"life to come/' it would still be wisdom to be 
godly, it would still be gain to a man to be a 
Christian. 

But this is not our only life. The life which 
now is does not terminate the duration of our 
being. After this, and beyond this, there is 
yet for us all "the life to come," the eternal 
life, the life which is the continuance, the fruit- 
age, the unending harvest of this life, "which 
now is." 

And godliness, says our text, is profitable 
also for that life. It declares that : 

II. Godliness, for that life which is to 

COME, IS ESPECIALLY PROFITABLE. 

"Profitable," it says, "not only for the life 
that now is, but also, or especially, for that 
which is to come." 

But, in what respects is godliness profitable 
for "the life to come" ? In every way. 
97 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

As all Christian experience proves, it is prof- 
itable when we once come to enter into that 
life which is to come. The entrance into the 
future life is by that mysterious experience 
which we call death. Dying, in other words, 
only expresses the silent and invisible flight of 
the human spirit out of this life that now is, 
into that other life — the life which is to come. 
We know but little really about this experience 
called dying. It must, however, be a very sol- 
emn experience. It is going from the tried to 
the untried ; from the known to the unknown ; 
from the seen to the unseen. It is not strange, 
therefore, that men, almost universally, fear 
to die. 

But "godliness" is "profitable" in death. 
Why? Why because "the sting of death is 
sin." But to a godly man that sting of death 
has been removed. His sins are all canceled. 
The record against him is clear. His guilt is 
all washed away in the blood which was shed 
for him on Calvary, and in which he has trust- 
ed, and does then trust, for salvation. Christ 
is his righteousness. In Christ, or through the 
imputed holiness of Christ, he then stands just- 
98 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ified before God, as though he were himself 
without sin, or entirely holy. And hence, be- 
ing thus fully at peace with God, through 
Christ; and being thus, because of Christ's 
work for him and the Holy Spirit's work 
within him, prepared to meet God, he dies in 
peace. He does not fear to enter into "the 
life to come." Untried and unknown as its 
experiences to him are, he yet knows that 
death to him is "gain" ; that it will introduce 
him into a life of ineffable and eternal bliss, 
compared with which the highest and purest 
joys of this present or earthly life are not 
worthy to be named. 

Thus sustained, the Christian or godly man 
goes up in death, without a fear, cheered with 
a sure hope of a blessed immortality, to meet 
his God. His "godliness" is then "profitable" 
to him. His faith, as a Christian, then sup- 
ports him. Going out of the life that now is, 
he enters joyously into that which is to come. 
Pausing, for a moment, in that dying hour, 
upon the boundary line, the narrow isthmus 
between time and eternity, he first, we may 
imagine, casts one glance back over the past, 
L.ofC 99 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

and then, looking forward to his new and bet- 
ter and eternal future home, he passes tri- 
umphantly over, exclaiming as he soars away : 

"The world recedes ! It disappears ! 
Heaven opens on my eyes ! My ears 

With sounds seraphic ring ! 
Lend, lend your wings ! I mount ! I fly ! 
Oh Grave, where is thy victory? 

Oh Death, where is thy sting?" 

Thus dies the Christian ! Thus only dies the 
Christian. No one but he can thus die. God- 
liness alone enables man thus to die in peace 
and in triumph. The lamp of the wicked, in 
a dying hour, goes out in darkness. The hope 
of the hypocrite then perishes. The world's 
sources of comfort then all fail. But the foun- 
dations of God then stand sure. The rock 
upon which the Christian has built his hopes 
abides immovable. His light goes not out. He 
knows "whom he has believed, and is persuaded 
that he is able to keep that which he has com- 
mitted to him against that day." 

"Let reason vainly boast her power 
To teach her children how to die ; 
ioo 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

The sinner, in a dying hour, 

Needs more than wisdom can supply. 
A view of Christ, the sinner's friend, 
Alone can cheer him in the end." 

But "godliness," or piety, avails also beyond 
death, or in the life eternal which follows 
death. "Godliness," says our text, "is profit- 
able unto all things, having promise of the life 
that now is, and of that which is to come." 

Promise of "the life to come," in what sense ? 
Not, I answer, as regards the fact of a life to 
come. For there is a life to come to all men, 
whether godly or ungodly. Death is annihila- 
tion neither to the righteous nor to the un- 
righteous. Immortality is unconditioned by 
moral character. "Marvel not at this," says 
Christ, "for the hour is coming in the which 
all that are in the graves shall hear the voice 
of the Son of Man, and shall come forth ; they 
that have done good unto the resurrection of 
life and they that have done evil unto the 
resurrection of damnation." Concerning the 
wicked, in the Day of Judgment, He says: 
"These shall go away into everlasting punish- 
ment, but the righteous into life eternal." 

IOI 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

But the meaning is : that to the "godly," or 
"pious/* there is the divine promise of a happy 
eternal life to come; that their immortality 
shall be to them a life of unending felicity ; a 
blessing, and not a curse ; a fellowship forever 
with God in bliss, and not, as to the wicked, 
a banishment forever from His presence in 
suffering and death. , 

And the godly shall thus be eternally in such 
blessed fellowship with God, because they are 
in moral character fitted thus to be with Him. 
Their "godliness" is their moral qualification 
for God. Only holy souls can dwell with the 
holy God. Only such would God allow to 
dwell with Him, or enjoy having with Him. 
"Blessed are the pure in heart," the holy in 
character, "for th^y shall see God." They 
alone can see Him ; that is, see Him and enjoy 
seeing Him ; see Him and live blissfully in the 
moral glory and ineffable holiness of His ma- 
jestic and august presence. 

Let us not forget this truth. Godliness is 

essentially necessary in order to enjoy God, 

either now or in eternity. To be happy with 

God, there must always first be right moral and 

102 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

spiritual relations toward God. The character 
of man must first be in moral harmony with 
God. Happiness and holiness are eternal cor- 
relatives. Even God could not be happy if He 
were not holy. He is infinitely happy because 
He is infinitely holy. So man, to be happy, 
must be holy. To be with God, and to enjoy 
God, and to share the happiness of God, he 
must first of all be like God. "Godliness," 
Godlikeness, God-fulness, God-oneness, this, in 
the very nature of the case, is, therefore, the 
absolutely necessary moral requirement in or- 
der to attain to a blissful immortality with God 
"in the life to come." 

But, whilst the godly only can thus see and 
enjoy God, all who are godly will see and en- 
joy Him. They do so now already. The good 
now see and enjoy God ; in His works, in His 
word, in His providence, in blessed spiritual 
communion with Him; see and enjoy God 
where the wicked have no conception whatever 
of His presence. And they will do so eter- 
nally: for it is divinely promised to them. 
Thus the "Godliness" of the good man quali- 
fies him for an eternal vision of God ; and the 
103 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

word of God, because he is godly, guarantees 
it to him. 

But Godliness, I yet add, is the measure also 
to each one of us, of the "life to come. ,, I 
mean by that : that the degree of our bliss in 
the "life to come" will be determined by the 
degree of our personal "holiness," or "godli- 
ness" to which in "the life which now is," we 
attain, and with which at death we enter from 
this life into that "life which is to come." 
"Holiness" is the soul's moral capacity for the 
enjoyment of God, and of all that constitutes 
the high bliss of "the life to come." The meas- 
ure, therefore, of our personal holiness will, 
to each one of us, be also the measure in heaven, 
through all eternity, of our personal happiness. 

Hence God says to all who hope for an 
eternal life with Him, "Be ye holy, for I am 
holy" : that is, "Be holy, for without holiness, 
because of my holiness, you can neither be 
admitted into my presence nor enjoy my pres- 
ence; and be eminently holy, for the degree 
of your holiness will be the measure of your 
soul's capacity, when once in My presence, of 
being happy; of knowing and loving and en- 
104 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

joying Me, and of coming eternally into closer 
and holier oneness with Me." 

Since piety is thus beneficial to us in all our 
relations both to God and man, since it thus 
promotes our highest welfare now and for- 
ever, since it thus gives us all we need for both 
body and soul, for both time and eternity, pi- 
ety, surely, is also the one thing which, above 
all others, we should seek after and cultivate. 
The fear of the Lord being thus the beginning 
of wisdom, this also should be the one supreme 
attainment to which we should all aspire, and 
for which, above all things else, we should 
supremely live. 

Make this, then, my hearers, the one high 
ambition of your lives. Cultivate Godliness, 
as the one best boon of your period. Be godly, 
come through faith in Christ into right moral 
relations with God ; be in moral harmony with 
God, be in character like God, live in obedi- 
ence to God, seek in all things to please God, 
give up your whole being to the service of 
God, consecrate all your life in holy ambition 
to glorify God, be filled with the Spirit of God, 
come willingly and fully under the sway of 
105 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

the renewing and sanctifying grace of God; 
in a word, seek after "Godliness." For he 
who has "Godliness" has God, and he who 
has God can want no more, but, in God, has 
all ; all life, all light, all holiness, all power, all 
peace, all satisfaction, all joy; a living spring 
of blessedness in his soul, a fountain of pur- 
est spiritual life, a heaven, whether he be 
here on earth or yonder in the skies; and 
is able ever to say: "I have set the Lord 
always before me; He is the portion of mine 
inheritance; because He is at my right hand, 
I shall not be moved; therefore my heart is 
glad and my glory rejoiceth; my flesh also 
shall rest in hope. Thou wilt show me the 
path of life; in Thy presence is fulness of 
joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures 
forevermore." 



to6 



THE DIVINE LAW OF SELF- 
SURRENDER. 

TEXT. 

"Verily, verily, I say unto you: Except a corn of 
wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, 
but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." — John 
xii. 24. 

The Saviour, in these words, expresses a 
great principle or law of His spiritual king- 
dom, namely, that by self-surrender and self- 
sacrifice, and even by self-dying, will come 
blessing and life, both to ourselves and to 
others. 

This principle, that by death comes life, is 
seen already in the natural world. The grain 
of seed must not only be cast into the ground, 
but it must also there die, must surrender 
itself even to death, must actually lay down as 
a sacrifice its life, before there can be germina- 
tion, growth, blade, stalk, harvest. But, in 
or by such self-surrender and death it gains 
107 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

all these. Out of its decay and death there 
comes a new and higher life in the growing 
plant. The single grain that dies multiplies 
itself into a hundred new and fresher grains. 
By dying it lives more than it lived while liv- 
ing. It gains by losing. i 

But this principle, thus true as a law, in the 
natural world, is equally true in the spiritual 
world. It governs in regard to all moral and 
spiritual life as truly as with regard to all 
merely material or irrational life. 

Our Saviour here declares that even He 
Himself is so under this law that He can 
become a true divine source of salvation and 
life to others only by first dying, or by first 
surrendering His life. This, indeed, is the 
very meaning of the text as He here uses it. 
Its primary reference is directly to Himself. 
It is a prophecy primarily of His death, but 
it is also a promise of life to our dead world 
from His death. By His death was to come 
our life. From His cross and passion was to 
spring up a great harvest of benefit to all man- 
kind. His dying, like a grain of seed-corn, 
was to be the origin, or the source, of infinite 
108 



Joy in the Divine Government. 



blessing and mercy to millions of immortal 
souls. The world was to have life, but could 
have it only by His death. 

And what was thus true in this respect of 
Christ, is equally true, also, as a law, or de- 
termining principle, with regard to every dis- 
ciple of Christ; and holds true, indeed, with 
regard to every human being. It is a divine 
law that men always gain by being willing 
first to lose. We always acquire more only 
by first surrendering what we have. We re- 
ceive the good by first parting with the bad; 
we receive the better by first parting with the 
good. We live by first dying. It is God's 
law. The grain of corn must first yield up 
its life before it can multiply itself into new 
life in other and fresher grains. 

This law of self-surrender, thus taught in 
our text, has a two-fold application to the 
Christian life, to a consideration of which I 
wish, today, to invite your attention. It ap- 
plies : 

I. To entrance into a true Christian life, 
and, 

II. To continuance in the Christian life. 

109 



Joy in the Divine Government. 
I remark therefore: 
I. That this law of self-surrender is 

THE DIVINE CONDITION OF ENTRANCE INTO A 
TRUE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 

It is only by a willing surrender of that 
which we by nature have, and love, and are, 
that we can at all become Christians. As our 
text teaches, there must first be the experience 
in us of death before there can be life; death 
to our natural self-will, and selfishness, and 
sin; death to our supreme love to the world 
and the things of time and sense ; death to all 
our sinful affections, and associations, and de- 
sires, and pleasures, and ambitions, and hab- 
its. "Old things," in the soul, and in the life, 
must first by voluntary relinquishment, as the 
Scriptures express it, "pass away" before all 
things in us and to us can become "new." 
There must be renunciation first of "the world, 
the flesh, and the devil," before there can even 
be the first step of true entrance upon the new 
life in Christ and in holiness. Over the portal 
of admission into the Kingdom the Saviour has 
written: "If any man will come after me, 
no 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and 
follow me." t 

Thus is the very beginning of the Christian 
life a surrender, a parting with what was be- 
fore possessed and loved, the actual dying of 
what formerly was the soul's very life. "He 
that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that 
hateth his life shall keep it unto life eternal. " 

The meaning of this is that if any man so 
loves his merely natural life, and especially 
his sinful life, that he is not willing to give 
it up and separate himself from it, he will, in 
death, lose all for which he here thus lived; 
while if, on the other hand, he now comes, by 
God's grace, to see the sinfulness of his natural 
life, and renounces it, he shall then "keep his 
life unto life eternal;" that is, he shall then 
have a new and higher life in holiness and 
Christ, which he will never part with, but 
which will be his blissful possession forever. 
In a word, the Saviour means in what He thus 
says, that if a man in any respect, so loves the 
life that now is ; the merely material, the social, 
the temporal, the sensuous, the earthly, and 
is so absorbed in these that he cannot and will 
in 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

not, for the sake of Christ and for the sake 
of his soul, give them up, as objects of su- 
preme affection and desire, he will, in conse- 
quence, find, at length, that he has not only- 
lost them, but has also lost himself, his soul, his 
own very being, his eternal life ; whilst, on the 
contrary, if, for Christ's sake, and for his soul's 
sake, he is ready to part with the sinful things 
of this world, ready to cast them from him 
as the farmer casts away the grain of seed 
which he sows, and if he is willing to give up 
himself, and all he has and is, as a glad sur- 
render to Christ, then also will he, in the high- 
est sense, keep himself, and then only will he 
truly keep himself. Then only will he really 
begin to live. His new and eternal life comes 
to him by his surrender of his present sinful 
self to death; he saves by losing; he gives up 
much, but he gets back more and better; he 
dies, but he rises, at once, in dying, up to a 
new and infinitely higher and holier and eternal 
life. The new birth in Christ is always out of 
the soul's voluntary death to the old life of 
sin. To get back home to his father's house, 
the prodigal, first of all, must rise up and leave 
112 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

the "far country" where before he had dwelled. 
And this is what conversion is. Conversion is 
simply turning; turning first from and then 
turning to ; from sin and self, to Christ and to 
holiness. To gain God's favor we must re- 
nounce the world's pleasure. To reach heaven 
we must part with earth. To gain, we must 
lose. To live, we must die. "Except a corn 
of wheat fall into the ground and die, it 
abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth 
much fruit." 

And hence Bunyan, in his matchless alle- 
gory, correctly, represents Christian, his pil- 
grim, as, first of all, in order to win the 
heavenly city, turning his back on his own na- 
tive earthly city; and he represents him as 
turning away even from his own family, and 
from his own best friends, because they would 
not go with him to the better life ; and he rep- 
resents him as closing his ears to all their ap- 
peals to him to return, crying, "Life! Life! 
Eternal life!" To gain that life, he gives up 
this. To win heaven, he loses earth. And 
that is what every one who wishes to be saved 
must do; for only by doing so can any one 
ever gain that better and eternal life. 
H3 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

This principle, which our Saviour here in our 
text declares, applies also, I now remark: 

II. TO THE WHOLE CONTINUANCE OF THE 
CHRISTIAN LIFE, AS WELL AS TO ITS BEGINNING. 

It holds true in our Christian life in two 
respects, namely, both as regards our useful- 
ness and our happiness. 

a. In the matter, first, of doing good, or of 
Christian usefulness, this law governs abso- 
lutely. 

In order to bless others, we must always 
ourselves first be losers. We must unselfishly 
first give up what we have, and use what we 
have, before we can successfully do anything 
for the good of others. Look, for example, 
at the mother. She is a fountain of daily ben- 
ediction to her children. But how does she 
become so ? Only by complete self-surrender ; 
only by unselfish sacrifice of her own comfort, 
ease, time, strength, life itself. Only thus, 
only at such cost, can she give them what she 
does. Look at the teacher! To awaken the 
dormant intellect of the pupil, to stir his slum- 
114 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

bering genius, and to bless him with the high 
boon of education, how he must tax his 
thought, his interest, his patience, his scholar- 
ship, his best skill and power; and how he 
must pour out in sacrifice his very being into 
the pupil. Look at the orator ! To instruct, 
to convince, to persuade his audience, to gain 
with them the point at which he aims, how it 
costs him the expenditure of all his best pos- 
sessions; his nerve, his knowledge, his cul- 
ture, his power of every kind, and how, to ef- 
fect his end, he must spend his very being and 
lay his very life upon the altar. Or, look at 
the patriot! Our patriotic soldiers, who now 
sleep in honored graves, sleep thus because 
they unselfishly laid down their lives in de- 
fense of their country. They might selfishly 
have saved their lives. They might have re- 
fused to enlist and march and suffer and die. 
But then their country could not have lived. 
Then the Union could not have been preserved. 
Then our nation, as one unbroken whole, could 
not have survived. The life, the blood, the 
death of unselfish heroes was the high price 
which must needs first be paid. But they 
"5 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

nobly paid that price. They grandly made 
that heroic self-sacrifice. And thus, namely, 
by themselves dying, they saved their country 
from dying ; and now, although dead, they yet 
live in the grateful memory of their country, 
in the principles that triumphed, and in the 
cause which they vindicated. 

And so general and absolute is this law 
that we may safely say that there is not a sin- 
gle blessing or element in all that today makes 
up our civilization, our liberty, our comforts, 
our luxuries, our education, our homes, our 
religion, which is not the legacy of cost, the 
purchase of sacrifice and of unselfishness, by 
those who have gone before us; the boon to 
us of pain and struggle, and labor, and skill, 
and heroism, and blood, and death of others 
gone before us. It is God's irreversible law. 

And thus also, I now remark, is it especially 
in all distinctively Christian usefulness. The 
condition of being a spiritual blessing to others, 
is this same grand principle of unselfish self- 
surrender. It is the law of Christ, and the law 
of His Kingdom for all time, that we cannot 
save others without first sacrificing ourselves. 
116 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

There must first be death ; death to our selfish- 
ness, to our love of ease, to all seeking of our 
own comfort, to all consideration of our own 
interests, and there must be in us, as there was 
in Christ, a willingness, if need be, to sacri- 
fice even our life itself in order to save others, 
before we can become, in a large measure, the 
saviours of our fellow men. Their life, their 
spiritual, their eternal life, can only come, as it 
were, through our death. Only by our spir- 
itual travail can they receive spiritual birth. 
"The blood of the martyrs has always been 
the seed of the church." Huss, and Ridley, 
and Latimer, and all "the noble army of mar- 
tyrs," laid down their lives for Christ and for 
the truth; but out from their ashes there has 
flamed a great pillar of Gospel light which has 
scattered the surrounding moral darkness, and 
which has showed thousands, and even mil- 
lions, of other human beings, both how to live 
for Christ, and, if needs be, how, also, bravely 
to die for Christ. 

,And thus it always is. The measure of our 
willingness to deny ourselves in order to do 
good, is the measure, also, of the good that 
117 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

we actually will do. If we do for Christ and 
for our fellowmen only which costs us noth- 
ing, we will do but little good, and that little 
will scarcely be worth the doing. Cost, sacri- 
fice, self-denial, toil, generosity, self-forgetful- 
ness, the laying down, every day, in whole or in 
part, of even life itself — this is ever the divine 
condition of usefulness, the price we must 
ever pay in order to be benefactors to our fel- 
lowmen or helpers to advance the Kingdom of 
Christ in the world. There must be sacrifice 
before there can be salvation; death before 
there can be life. That was a very beautiful 
illustration of this law recently given by Mr. 
Moody in one of his sermons. One of his lit- 
tle Sunday-school scholars, being very sick, 
sent for him, and asked him, if she died, to 
preach her funeral sermon. And she gave this 
reason for her request: "I have been trying 
so long to bring father to church and he would 
never come. But now, I have been thinking, 
if I die, father will not refuse to go to my 
funeral, and then you can tell him all about 
Jesus ; and, Mr. Moody, I would be willing to 
die six times over to get him to hear you tell 
118 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

about Jesus." She died, as she expected, but 
Mr. Moody himself was sick at the time of her 
death and could not attend her funeral. But 
a few weeks after her death a rough-looking 
man called on him, and holding out his hand, 
said: "You don't know me ?" "No, I don't." 
"Well, I," he said, "am the father of little 
Mary, the father she died for. I heard how- 
she said she would die six times over for me 
if only I could hear the gospel once. It nearly 
breaks my heart. Oh, I do want to be a Chris- 
tian, so that I can meet the dear child again 
in heaven." Soon after he united with the 
church, and has, ever since, now four or five 
years, been a faithful and consistent Christian ; 
led to Christ by the mighty love for him of his 
child; a love so great, so self-sacrificing, so 
thoroughly Christ-like, that she was glad, in 
order to save him, to die for him. Such in- 
terest and such love for others we all need; 
and only in the measure in which we have it 
will we be useful. Only as we thus love souls 
into the Kingdom of Christ will we win them 
in at all. 

And here is the secret, also, of post-mortem 
119 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

usefulness, or of doing good after we are dead, 
even down to the end of time. Of Abel it is 
written: "He being dead, yet speaketh. ,, So 
it may be said of all of us when once we have 
passed away from earth. But in order that 
we may thus live on when once we are dead, 
we must now, while we live, put ourselves, at 
cost to ourselves, into something that will live 
after we are gone. Doing so, we can all give 
ourselves a blessed double immortality — an 
immortality with Christ in heaven, and an im- 
mortality for Christ and for the church, for 
the good of our fellowmen and for the glory 
of God down to the end of time, here upon 
earth. Thus the godly mother may live on 
after she is dead in the godly life and charac- 
ter of her children ; the pious author in his pure 
and helpful writings; the faithful teacher in 
his influence and impress upon his scholars; 
the Christian pastor in his earnest teachings of 
God's word to his people; the unselfish phi- 
lanthropist by the liberal gift of his means. 
Thus we all may be immortally useful. 

But this divine law of self-surrender holds 
true, also, 

120 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

b. In our Christian life as a condition of our 
own personal happiness. 

To live to do good is ever the secret of a 
truly happy life. Unselfishness is the secret of 
a happy life. Self-denial is God's highway to 
joy. We make ourselves most happy when we 
most forget ourselves, and most live to make 
others happy. He that selfishly lives only to 
make himself happy, never is happy; he, on 
the other hand, who unselfishly forgets him- 
self and lives to do good and make others 
happy, in this very act makes himself happy. 
For happiness is a shy goddess, ever gliding 
farther and farther away from those who di- 
rectly, and only for their own selfish enjoy- 
ment of her, seek her. But happiness has a 
twin sister, whose name is usefulness, and who 
is always near to each one of us, and whom 
we all may daily find, and, finding whom, we 
also find happiness. Finding usefulness we 
also find and have happiness. 

Christ, our Divine Lord, even in sight of His 

cross, was filled with joy. He was glad, we 

read, even in the agony of Gethsemane and the 

bitterness of Calvary, because He saw that 

121 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

by His death He could give life to our lost 
world. "Looking unto Jesus, the author and 
the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that 
was set before Him endured the cross, despis- 
ing the shame." , 

And so, also, may we, by Christ-like self- 
denial and self-sacrifice, both for the bodies 
and for the souls of our fellowmen, bring into 
our own souls a very floodtide of holy joy. 
"The quality of mercy is not strained. It drop- 
peth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the 
place beneath. It is twice blessed. It blesseth 
him that gives and him that takes." 

But, blessed and joyous as is thus a life of 
Christian self-denial and sacrifice, for the glory 
of God and for the good of our fellowmen, 
now already, our highest reward and richest 
return for it all will, of course, be in the life 
to come. The Saviour, out of love for whom 
we now do thus labor, and deny and sacrifice 
ourselves, sees and knows and notes it all ; and 
He then will, also, as He has promised, re- 
ward it all. He regards all we thus do for 
His church or for our needy fellowmen, as 
evidence of our love for Him, and as having 

122 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

been done directly and personally for Himself. 
Hence, even the giving of a cup of cold water 
to a thirsty one, in the name of a disciple, shall, 
He assures us, have, from Him, its eternal re- 
ward. 



123 



RELIGIOUS DUTY BETTER 
THAN RELIGIOUS EN- 
JOYMENT. 

TEXT. 

"Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, 
it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make 
here three tabernacles: one for Thee, one for Moses, 
and one for Elias" — Matthew xviL 4. 

All things considered, it is no wonder that 
Peter declared it to be "good" to be there on 
the Mount of Transfiguration. With the moun- 
tain all ablaze, as it was with divine glory; 
with the Saviour's form radiant above the 
brightness of the sun; with the presence and 
conversation of Moses and Elijah, who had 
just descended from the celestial world; with 
a bright cloud of light overshadowing and en- 
veloping them with its unearthly lustre; with 
the voice of God speaking out of the cloud and 
saying to them : "This is my beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased ; hear ye Him" ; with 
all this, and with yet much more filling his cup 
of religious enjoyment to overflowing, it is, I 
124 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

say, no wonder that Peter felt glad to be there, 
and that he desired there also forever to re- 
main. Speaking as he felt, it is not strange 
that he exclaimed, as he did : "Lord, it is good 
for us to be here; good to be here and good, 
also, to stay here. Here, in the bliss of this 
holy mount, let us abide. If thou wilt, let us 
here make three tabernacles, one for Thee, one 
for Moses, and one for Elias." 

And Peter was right, as he appreciated the 
situation, in what he thus said. It was good 
to be there, so far as Peter himself was con- 
cerned, and so far as mere present religious 
enjoyment was concerned. 

And yet his proposal was sadly defective 
and wrong, viewed in a broader and better 
light. In wishing as he did to stay there, in 
selfishly forgetting the sinful and suffering 
world down at the foot of the mount, in mak- 
ing more of mere religious enjoyment than of 
the higher claims of religious duty, in thinking 
more of himself, and of the immediate present, 
than of his obligations to others and in forget- 
ting that he himself was under discipline for 
an eternal and heavenly life, of which all that 

125 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

transfiguration glory was only the faintest 
symbol or foreshadowing, in all these respects 
his proposal was greatly defective. Good to 
be there? Yes ! But not best to remain there. 
Why not? Simply because God had better 
things in store for Peter than that joy of the 
Mount of Transfiguration, ecstatic as that was. 
He purposed bringing him to Mount Zion on 
high, to an infinitely greater glory, to the un- 
veiled radiance of Christ, his Master, in His 
celestial and eternal kingdom, to the presence 
and companionship, not of Moses and Elijah 
only, but of all the countless multitudes of the 
redeemed, and of all the innumerable hosts of 
angels around the throne of God in His eter- 
nal presence. But Peter was far from being 
yet prepared for this glorious heavenly life. 
He needed a discipline which no mere joyous 
experiences on the Mount of Transfiguration 
could give him; which no mere sitting there 
and quietly beholding the revealed glory of 
Christ, delightful as that was, could work 
within him, but which only stern and unflinch- 
ing and brave fidelity to Duty, which only the 
rough and painful experiences of contact and 
126 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

conflict with a wicked world, which only the 
sharp and lacerating discipline of labor and 
suffering and even of martyrdom itself, for 
Christ, could and finally would bestow upon 
him. The way for Peter, as also for each one 
of us, and for all Christ's disciples, and even 
for our Divine Master Himself by which to 
attain to heaven and to eternal life, leads not 
up from the bliss and glory of the Mount of 
Transfiguration, but is always trodden with 
bleeding feet, slowly, through the darkness of 
the garden of Gethsemane, and around the 
brow of Calvary. 

Hence, though, as a matter of enjoyment, 
it was "good" for Peter to be there with Christ 
on the Mount, it still would not, as he re- 
quested, have been good for him to have re- 
mained there. Religious duty, patient labor, 
quiet suffering, holy living, victorious dying, 
down at the foot of the Mount, and out amid 
the noise and dust and conflict of the busy 
world, trying to win it to Christ and seeking 
to save it by the power of the Gospel — that, 
for Christ, for Peter, and for the world would 
be infinitely better. Jesus wanted no Taber- 
127 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

nacles built, as quiet places of mere enjoyment, 
neither for Himself nor for any of His dis- 
ciples, there in the Mount of Transfiguration. 
With Him Religious Duty, then and always, 
was before mere religious enjoyment; and He 
then and always regarded Religious Enjoy- 
ment as valuable only in so far as it was helpful 
in any way to the better discharge of Religious 
Duty. 

This lesson Jesus still teaches His disciples. 
He takes us, at times, up into Blessed Spiritual 
Mounts, not, however, to stay in the glory of 
them; not for the mere sake of the enjoyment 
itself, as an end, which we may there experi- 
ence, but in order that we may in these Mounts 
gather strength and encouragement for the 
Christian duties which lie in our pathway of 
life, and which meet us down at the foot of 
these Transfiguration Elevations. 

Two Questions may profitably, in our con- 
sideration of this text, engage our thoughts, 
namely : 

I. Why was it good, as Peter declared, to 
be there on the Mount of Transfiguration with 
Christ ? And, 

128 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

II. Why would it not have been good, as he 
wanted, to have remained there with Christ? 

Let us consider each of these questions in 
the order stated. First, then, we ask : 

I. Why, as peter declared, was it good 

FOR HIM AND JAMES AND JOHN TO BE THERE 
WITH JESUS ON THE MOUNT. 

One reason manifestly lies in the very fact 
that Jesus Himself had taken them there. 

"And after six days, Jesus," we read, "tak- 
eth Peter, and James, and John, his brother, 
and bringeth them up into a high mountain 
apart, and was transfigured before them." They 
were, therefore, at that time, just where Jesus 
wanted them to be. It is always good to be 
where Jesus wants us to be; where He takes 
us, or where He bids us go, or where He goes 
with us, and where we can know and feel that 
He is with us. He does not always want us 
in the same place, even though it be in itself 
the holiest or best place. Just then He wanted 
Peter, James and John in the Mount. The 
very next day, however, He wanted them down 
with Him in the World. So with us, Our place 
129 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

today is in the Prayer-meeting, or at the Com- 
munion Table; tomorrow it is in our shop or 
store, or nursery. Jesus calls us to all these, 
and is with us in all these. There is a proper 
time for worship, and another proper time for 
work; a time for enjoyment, and a time for 
energy; a time for devotion, and a time for 
duty; a time for the gathering of spiritual 
strength, and a time for the expenditure of 
that strength; a time to sing, and a time to 
suffer ; a time to be on the Mount, and a time 
to be down amid the dust and toil and sweat 
of service for Christ and for humanity. And 
wherever Jesus calls us to go or be, there, at 
that time, we ought also to go or be, and there 
it will then also be good for us to be. And 
there we can then say : "Lord, it is good to be 
here." 

That Mount Hermon, where the Transfig- 
uration took place, was, in itself, no very de- 
sirable place to be. It was difficult to ascend, 
was rough, bleak, cold, inhospitable. But, led 
there by the Saviour, and accompanied thither 
by His presence, it instantly became to these 
disciples a Mount of Glory, a very Gateway 
130 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

of Heaven. So pathways of Duty, and Crosses 
of Sorrow, and days of Trial, Sick Beds, Be- 
reavements, Sufferings, Poverty, Experiences 
of any kind, if accompanied by Christ's pres- 
ence and grace, become to us also, such Blessed 
Mounts, and lead us also to say, as Peter here 
said : ''Lord, it is good to be here." This has 
often been the joyous experience of the disci- 
ples of Christ. 

Go, then, my hearer, wherever duty, at the 
time, bids you go. But go nowhere, and be 
nowhere where Christ is not, and where you 
cannot take Christ with you. When Christ 
bids you, or invites you, go up with Him into 
the Mount; and when He bids you, go down 
again into the busy secular life. The one 
place, with Christ, is as sacred as the other. 
The one duty is worship much as the other. 
We glorify Christ, by holy honest living, 
through the week, as much as we glorify Him 
by singing, and praying, and preaching, on 
Sunday. The home, the shop, the mill, the of- 
fice, the market, the store, the street with 
Christ and in the line of duty and living there 
for the glory of God, is holy ground, and as 
131 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

near heaven as the consecrated sanctuary, or 
the house of God. To us, as to St. John, even 
dreary islands, like Patmos, if we are in com- 
munion with Christ, become gateways of heav- 
en. 

"While blessed with a sense of His love, 

A palace a toy would appear ; 
And prisons would palaces prove 

If Jesus would dwell with me there. " 

But it was thus "good" to be there upon that 
Mount of Transfiguration also, because there 
Jesus wondrously revealed Himself to His dis- 
ciples. 

There "His face," we read, "did shine as the 
sun, and His raiment was white as the light." 
There they "beheld His glory, the glory as of 
the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace 
and truth." There the splendor of His Deity 
shone out through the Veil of His Humanity, 
and there He stood revealed before them as 
they never had beheld Him before. And it 
was "good" for them thus to see Him there, 
in the radiance and glory of His Divinity. For 
thus seeing Him, it gave a new and clearer 
132 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

view of His real and true being. It confirmee] 
their faith in Him, and it fitted them to go 
down from that Mount, and with new courage 
and strength and zeal to follow Him and to 
confess Him everywhere. 

And, for this same reason, it is good also 
for us often to go up into the Mount of our 
Spiritual Privileges ; the Mount of God's Word 
and Sacraments, the Mount of the Sanctuary. 
It is good for us to ascend the Mount of Pray- 
er, the Mount of Communion with Christ, be- 
cause thus we come into holier and closer near- 
ness to Christ. In all these, Christ is revealed 
more and more clearly before us ; stands out, as 
it were, "transfigured" before us, and we catch 
new and more precious views of Him as our 
Divine Saviour, and because of these new and 
more precious views of him, our faith in Him 
is strengthened, our love deepened, our zeal 
for His glory anew enkindled, and we come 
down from these "Mounts of Communion" and 
Revelation animated anew to confess Him be- 
fore men, and to live and labor, and, if need 
be, even die for Him. Yes ! It is "good" to 
go to our Bibles, to our Churches, to our Lord's 
133 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Tables, to our Closets of Prayer, because there 
we see Jesus as we see Him nowhere else. On 
the Mount and not down in the low plains of 
earth, is His Temple and Means of Grace, and 
not in the world of Sin He reveals Himself 
to us. , 

Use faithfully, then, my hearers, God's ap- 
pointed Means of Grace. To see the moral and 
spiritual glory of your Lord Jesus Christ, go 
to His House, seek for Him in His Word, feed 
upon Him in His Holy Supper, lift up your 
Spirit to Him in prayer. Thus look for Him, 
and you will see Him. Thus seek Him, and 
you will find Him. Thus desire to behold 
Him, and He will reveal Himself also glori- 
ously to you. 

,It was "good," however, also for the disci- 
ples to be there in the Mount of Transfigura- 
tion with Christ because of the holy joy which, 
because of His glory, they there experienced. 

,The revelation of the glory of Christ, which 
he there beheld, filled Peter's heart with un- 
utterable gladness. His cup of bliss was there 
full. There was, in that glad hour, a very 
foretaste of heaven in his soul. His happiness 
134 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

was perfect, and he was willing, if Christ so 
willed, to build tabernacles, and abide there 
forever. 

But, thus does Jesus now often, when His 
disciples are in the Mount of Communion with 
Him, gladden their hearts and fill them with 
joy. How often, for example, in the sanctu- 
ary, is not the Christian's soul thus filled with 
joy, so that he says : "Lord, it is good to be 
here." Especially at the Lord's table. What 
a joyous Mount of Transfiguration there often 
is to the disciple of Christ ! How the moral 
radiance of His glorified Redeemer there shines 
out upon him, and fills and thrills his soul with 
the very ecstacy of heaven, and, in the fulness 
of his joy, he cries out : "Lord, it is good to 
be here/' And so, also, at times, in our closets 
of prayer! How full the cup of joy which is 
there sometimes poured out by the Transfig- 
ured Saviour's hand, into our souls ! How 
"good" to be there ! 

The world thinks a religious life a gloomy 

and a joyless life. They think we Christians 

have no happiness. Poor souls ! It is Religion 

alone that gives real joy. It is we Christians 

i35 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

alone who are really happy. We are not al- 
ways, of course, on the Mount. It would not 
be well for us if we always were. But still, 
we sometimes are, and some of us often are. 
We have, at times, as Christians, special ex- 
periences of our Saviour's nearness and com- 
fort and of our rich blessedness and heirship 
in Him ; and we have always peace of soul and 
quietness of conscience, and hope of eternal 
life through Him. All this the world does not 
have, and without Christ, cannot have. Hence 
it is ever restless and unsatisfied, and is ever 
asking : "Who will show us any good ?" With- 
out Christ, and reconciliation to God, and qui- 
etness of Conscience, it can never, with Peter, 
say: "Lord, it is good to be here; here we 
have all we want; here let us build taberna- 
cles." That satisfaction and peace and rest, 
the soul alone possesses that seeks and finds 
its happiness in Christ. 

But, while it was thus "good" for Peter to 
be in the Mount awhile with Christ, I now re- 
mark: 



136 



Joy in the Divine Government. 
II. That it would not have been good 

FOR HIM, AS HE DESIRED, TO HAVE BEEN AL- 
LOWED TO REMAIN THERE. 

The proposal to build three tabernacles 
there, and then stay there, and give themselves 
up to the mere soft luxury of enjoyment — 
that proposal was, in every way, a very short- 
sighted and ignorant and selfish proposal. It 
was born, indeed, of pure selfishness. All who 
were there upon the Mount, Peter himself in- 
cluded, the world down below the Mount, we, 
all men, would all have been losers had his 
proposal been granted. Think for a moment 
how much would have been lost. Moses and 
Elijah would have been kept away from 
heaven. Jesus would have been detained from 
His great life work of human redemption. The 
world would have been deprived of an atone- 
ment for its sins. Peter would have lost all 
the grand career of usefulness which he after- 
ward wrought, and would thus have missed 
the bright crown of Eternal Salvation which 
he now wears as the reward of all his labors 
and sufferings for Christ. The truth is, Peter, 
137 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

in thus desiring to stay there upon the Mount, 
made several very great mistakes; mistakes, 
alas ! which we, too, are constantly prone to 
make. 

His first mistake was in making Religion 
consist so much in mere religious enjoyment. 

To be there in the Mount ; to behold the glory 
of Jesus ; to be feeling "good ;" to be listening 
to the conversation of Moses and Elijah; to 
be having, in a word, "a happy time of it"; 
that seemed to Peter to be the perfection of 
piety, the highest and most desirable attain- 
ment possible in Christian life. 

There are many such Christians now. They 
estimate the measure of their piety altogether 
by the tone and character of their feelings. 
They value a religious service by the amount 
of good feeling that it creates. "Feeling/ 1 
"enjoyment," is with them everything. 

But this is surely a great mistake. Piety 
does not consist in mere experiences occasion- 
ally of religious ecstacies. It consists in relig- 
ious knowledge, in Christian fidelity, in the 
culture of a Christian conscience, in unselfish 
Christian activity, in holiness, in consistency 
138 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

of daily life, in increasing likeness to Christ, 
in solid Christian character. This is genuine 
Christian piety. And happiness is only an in- 
cidental fruit of all this Christian living and 
character. Only because Peter was a real and 
true and advanced disciple of Christ, did Christ 
take him up into the Mount at all, and his 
happiness there was granted him only as an 
encouragement to him in his subsequent Chris- 
tian service and suffering when he should 
again go down from the Mount. 

Beware, Christian friends, of substituting 
good feeling for goodness, or mere occasional 
pious emotions for piety, or mere excited and 
aroused religious sensibilities for religion. You 
are a "Christian," not in proportion to how 
"happy" you may occasionally get in a relig- 
ious meeting, but in proportion to your like- 
ness in spirit and life to Christ, and in propor- 
tion to how squarely and fairly you act and 
speak and live when you are not in a religious 
meeting, and when you are not especially 
happy, and when you are down again from 
the Mount, and out amid the dust and tussle 
and struggle of every day life. Then is the 
139 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

time to measure our piety, and know about 
how much real "grace" we have; or rather, 
how T little we have, even the best of us. 

But a second mistake which Peter made was 
in entirely forgetting and ignoring the claims 
upon him, as a disciple of Christ, of the 
wretched and perishing World, down at the 
foot of that Mount of Transfiguration. 

He, Peter, was all right ; he was near Christ 
up in the Mount, happy, seeing and hearing- 
blessed things, enjoying the company of visit- 
ors from heaven, and himself on the way to 
heaven, and little now did he think or care for 
all the vast multitudes of sick and sorrowing 
and suffering and sinful and perishing, that 
were not up there where he was. Little did 
he think of going down and carrying to them 
the blessed message of all that he had there 
seen and heard and felt of Christ, and try to 
bring them, also, to Him. No! He thought 
in that glad hour only of himself. He wanted 
to stay there. And Jesus had first, as it were, 
to put out the Light and Glory of that Trans- 
figuration Scene, and, as it were, push him 
down from the Holy Mount before he was will- 
140 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ing to relinquish his enjoyment, and leave the 
bliss that he was there selfishly drinking in, 
and come down again to live and labor and 
even die to lead others to Christ. 

And that, also, is the very mistake which 
from the early days of Christianity, Christian 
men and women, for the sake of holy devo- 
tion and enjoyment, have made, who as an- 
chorites, and hermits, and monks, and nuns, 
have shut themselves up in caves and cells and 
monasteries, to be there alone with God. Some 
of the saintliest of Christ's disciples, sick of 
sin, and longing for closer communion with 
God, have done so. But it was a mistake. 
The world needed them, and was left worse 
and morally more helpless without them, and 
their duty was to have remained, as moral 
lights and teachers and workers for Christ in 
it. And they also needed the discipline which 
contact thus with the wicked world would 
have given them. Their piety would have 
grown infinitely more robust and healthful and 
vigorous by remaining in the world, and bat- 
tling against sin, and relieving sorrow and 
141 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

seeking to save the world, than selfishly fleeing 
from it all. It was a mistake. 

But that is a mistake which we all, as Chris- 
tians, are apt to make. We are prone to make 
our religion terminate too much with ourselves. 
If only we ourselves are Christians, if we 
think it is all right with our own dear selves ; 
if only we are on the Mount with Christ, and 
on the way to heaven, then we rest there, and 
we concern ourselves, alas ! but little about the 
suffering and perishing world around us. 

All this, however, is certainly wrong. It is 
intensely selfish. Our duty is to seek to save 
others as well as ourselves. Our duty is not 
selfish enjoyment, but unselfish, earnest Chris- 
tian activity. As long as the world is so full 
of sin and of sorrow and of suffering, and 
has such need of Christ and of salvation, our 
place is not on the Mount of Ease or Enjoy- 
ment, but it is down and out in this lost world, 
seeking by every means in our power to bring 
it also to the Christ Whom we have found and 
in Whom we rejoice. 

A third mistake which Peter, in desiring to 
remain upon the Mount, made, was : In sup- 
142 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

posing that enjoyment, or exemption from suf- 
fering, was better than suffering. 

Jesus had foretold the sufferings which He, 
as Redeemer, w T as soon about to endure. And 
He had, also, foretold to Peter the sufferings 
which he, as His disciple, would endure. But 
if he thought at all, Peter thought that to stay 
there on the Mount, and escape all these pre- 
dicted sufferings, would be much better than 
to go down from it and meet and endure them 
all. Better for Christ, he perhaps thought, to 
stay here than to go down, and be "rejected 
of the Jew r s, and suffer many things of the 
elders and chief priests and scribes, and be 
killed." And better, also, for myself, he per- 
haps thought, to stay here than to go through 
all that is before me as an apostle of Christ. 
But would it have been better ? No ! It would 
not have been better. It was better for Christ 
Himself, better also for Peter, and infinitely 
better, surely, for us and for the world, that 
that Transfiguration Scene did not continue; 
that Christ and His chosen three did not stay 
there upon the Mount. That enjoyment of the 
Mount, and that exemption from suffering 
i43 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

which would then have been escaped would, 
no doubt, have been vastly pleasanter, but it 
would certainly not have been better. Better 
in the end for them all possible suffering than 
even an endless enjoyment such as they were 
then possessing. 

And so with us. We shrink, I know, from 
trials and from sorrows and from sufferings. 
We deem them often only an evil. We prefer 
present and constant enjoyment. We would, 
if we could, like Peter, always stay upon the 
Mount. But, even for ourselves, this would 
not be "good." Enjoyment is not the highest 
good. Moral discipline is our highest good. 
Culture of character, holiness, likeness to 
Christ, spiritual readiness for heaven; these 
are the best attainments. And yet all these 
come to us, not in the sunny Vale of Prosperity, 
not in the Mount of Enjoyment, but down in 
the valley of sorrow, by the experience of af- 
fliction, and of heartache, and of tears, and of 
suffering. "No Cross, no Crown/' No fur- 
nace of fire, no purifying of the gold! No 
suffering, then also no sanctification ! No ho- 
liness, no heaven! 

144 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

"The path of Sorrow, and that path alone, 
Leads to the land where Sorrow is unknown." 

One other mistake which Peter, in this wish 
of his to remain there upon the Mount, made, 
was : In supposing that anywhere upon this 
earth of ours, even upon the Mount of Trans- 
figuration, it would be safe or good to build 
tabernacles and hope for full and permanent 
enjoyment in them. 

Peter said : "Lord, it is good to be here ; 
here let us build tabernacles. " But Jesus said : 
"No! Neither here, nor anywhere else on 
earth do I wish you to build for yourself a 
home, and hope to abide in it." 

And He says the same to us. How often 
we feel that it is good to be here, in this place 
or that, here on earth. How disposed we all 
are to build tabernacles for ourselves and rest 
in them, and say : "In these, now, will be our 
stay." What a beautiful tabernacle, for ex- 
ample, we sometimes build for ourselves of 
wealth, or of health, or of worldly honor, or 
of our children and households, and we say to 
ourselves : "It is good to be here." But ad- 
versity comes, and sickness comes, and disap- 
145 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

pointment comes, and death comes, and our 
tabernacles fall. And we bow weeping over 
their ruin. And then, standing by our side, 
as we gaze thus tearfully upon their wreck, 
Jesus says to us : "O, disciple of mine, I told 
you not to build tabernacles for yourself upon 
earth. It is not good to build tabernacles for 
thyself anywhere here below, or of any ma- 
terial which this world affords thee. He builds 
too low who builds below the sky. Build for 
thyself, by faith, love and hope and holiness, 
a tabernacle in the world to come, in heaven, 
the bright and beautiful home of God. There 
build, for there only canst thou build safely. 
Tabernacles reared there never fall. There 
only is the true and abiding "Mount of Trans- 
figuration" ; there where the radiant glory of 
Christ shall forever shine forth; there where 
Moses and Elias and the Apostles and the 
Saints of all ages shall hold eternal companion- 
ship with thee ; there where the bliss of the re- 
deemed shall never end. There thou canst, 
at last, rightly and safely say: "Lord, here it 
is good to be; here with Thee; here without 
sin or sorrow; here where change and disap- 
146 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

pointment and loss and death never can come ; 
here in this divine abode, blissful, permanent, 
unfluctuating, everlasting. Lord, here it is 
good to be ; here let us now build tabernacles ; 
here, with Thee and with all Thy saints, in 
light and glory ineffable and enduring, let us 
stav forever." 



M7 



CONCERNING PAUL'S 
THORN. 

TEXT. 

"And lest I should be exalted above measure 
through the abundance of the revelations, there was 
given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of 
Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above 
measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, 
that it might depart from me, and he said unto me, 
My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is 
made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore 
will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power 
of Christ may rest upon me." — 2 Corinthians xii. 7-9. 

The Apostle Paul here gives us a page from 
his inner or private Christian experience. He 
takes us, as it were, into his especial confidence, 
and tells us of something which had befallen 
him which, for a while at least, was a great sor- 
row or trouble to him, but which he carried to 
God in prayer, and which, by His grace, was 
made the occasion and means of great spirit- 
ual blessing to him. He calls it, whatever it 
was, his "thorn in the flesh": that is, it was 
148 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

some affliction, or trial of some kind, which 
was to him annoying and irritating, just as a 
thorn would have been which had accidentally 
been run into some sensitive part of his body, 
and was now lodged and festering there. 

Let us study concerning Paul's Thorn in 
the flesh ! 

I. What was it? 
II. Why was it given him ? 
III. What did he do with it? 

Let us ask and answer these three ques- 
tions, in the order stated, and thus seek to un- 
derstand a most interesting experience in the 
life of the great Apostle; and an experience, 
also, whose lessons may be most helpful to us 
in connection with our "thorns in the flesh." 

I. What was this thorn in the Flesh, 
which was thus given to the Apostle, and of 
which he here, in our text, speaks? 

"There was given to me," he says, "a 
thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to 
buffet me." 

I need hardly remind you of the fact that 
there has been an almost countless number 
of conjectures concerning the exact nature 
149 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

or character of this trial which had befallen 
the Apostle, and which he here, so express- 
ively and almost pathetically calls his "thorn 
in the flesh. " No two expositors seem fully 
to agree in their judgment of what it was. 
Some suggest that it was a stuttering or 
stammering in his speech. Others, that it was 
a ridiculous or mirth-provoking distortion of 
his countenance or muscles of his face. 
Others, that it was a paralytic disorder. 
Others, that it was an epileptic affection. 
Others, that it was a weakness or disease of 
his eyes, an impairment of his sight, the re- 
sult of the glorious vision of Christ and of 
Heaven which he beheld at the time of his 
conversion, on the way to Damascus ; St. Chry- 
sostom tells us that it was probably headache ; 
Tertullian, that it was earache ; and Rosenmil- 
ler, the German critic, desides that it was what 
he calls "Gout in the head," a periodical dis- 
order which affected his brain. Many of the 
old Latin fathers, on the other hand, held that 
it was no physical or bodily disorder at all ; 
that the words, "thorn in the flesh," are used 
by him entirely in a figurative sense ; and that 
150 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

he meant by them some ungovernable lust, 
some passion, some temper, some sore spirit- 
ual trial or temptation, wrought in him by the 
agency of the devil; and that he, therefore, 
very properly speaks of it as "the messenger 
of Satan to buffet me." 

Thus there have been all kinds of opinions, 
wise and otherwise, in answer to the question : 
"What was Paul's Thorn in the Flesh?" The 
simple truth is: we do not know certainly 
what it was. All that we can, with any as- 
surance, say concerning it is : that it was some 
kind of humiliating, annoying or painful afflic- 
tion. Most probably it was some bodily de- 
formity or infirmity. Possibly there was such 
an impression or effect produced upon him at 
his conversion, or later, when he was, as he 
tells us here in the context, once caught up 
into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words 
which it was not possible for him to utter, as 
to leave some permanent physical infirmity; 
affecting, as we may gather, here and there 
from his epistles, his appearance, his sight, his 
speech, his hands. For you remember that he 
generally wrote his epistles, save a few trem- 
151 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ulous lines at their close, by the hand of an 
amanuensis. You remember, also, how he 
speaks, in one place of his "temptation or trial 
which was in his flesh" ; how he tells us that 
his bodily presence was weak, and his speech 
contemptible"; how he speaks of himself as 
"always bearing about in the body the dying 
of the Lord Jesus" ; and how, here in our text, 
in speaking of this thorn, he speaks of it spe- 
cifically as "a thorn in the flesh". And, besides, 
he here adds, that, since divine strength was 
made manifest to him in connection with this 
weakness, or trial, he "glories in his weakness 
or infirmity" : something which he surely 
would and could not have done had this 
"thorn in the flesh" been, as some have sug- 
gested, some moral trial, some spiritual tempta- 
tion, some weakness in his Christian char- 
acter or life. 

Summing up, then, all the probabilities in 
the case, we conclude that Paul's "thorn in 
the flesh" was a bodily disorder of some kind ; 
some physical defect; or painful or humiliat- 
ing distortion of his face, perhaps; or some 
weakness, perhaps, in his vision or eye-sight; 
152 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

or some defect, perhaps, in his speech; or 
some nervous or epileptic or paralytic infirm- 
ity; something, whatever it was, that could 
manifestly be seen by others and that rendered 
him, as he thought, weak in his influence and 
power over others, that made him to some an 
object of remark and ridicule, and even of con- 
tempt, and that, therefore, at times, greatly 
mortified and humbled him. 

And, besides, he also felt that Satan, in 
some way was the author of it : that, while God 
allowed the thorn, it was yet a thorn of the 
devil's planting, and was designed by the 
Evil One, not only for his annoyance and dis- 
tress personally, but was especially designed to 
weaken his Christian influence, and to dimin- 
ish his power, as an Apostle of Christ and 
as a Preacher of the Gospel. It was, he felt, 
"the messenger of Satan to buffet him." 

And this feature of it was to him an es- 
pecial element of humiliation and distress : the 
sharpest point of the thorn, the point that en- 
tered deepest into his soul, and that hurt him 
most. He chafed and fretted under the sense 
that he in any way, should be under Satan's 
153 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

power, and that the devil should in any way in- 
terfere with his work for Christ. 

But, has Satan power over human bodies? 
Has he power to inflict disease? With divine 
permission, he certainly has. He clearly did 
so in the case of Job. He did so in the case of 
the poor woman whom Jesus healed on the 
Sabbath day, and whom He declared "Satan 
hath bound, lo, these eighteen years." He 
also clearly had this power and sadly exercised 
it, too, in all the many instances of "Demoni- 
acal Possession" recorded in the New Testa- 
ment. And so here, in this case of Paul's 
Thorn in the Flesh, he expressly assigns it to 
Satan's agency. God, of course, permitted 
it ; but Satan inflicted it. Satan gave it to him 
in malice, and God allowed him to do so, and 
then over-ruled it for good. In the end, as is 
always the case in "thorns" of the devil's 
planting, it became much more of a "thorn in 
the flesh" to the devil himself than it ever 
was to the Apostle. 

And now, whilst having said so much about 
Paul's "thorn in the flesh," let me add that 
Paul is not the only Christian who went 
154 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

through life with a "thorn in the flesh." He 
is, indeed, in this respect, only a representative 
of the condition of all Christians. His expe- 
rience, in this respect, is the ideal of all gen- 
uine Christian experience. You and I, as 
Christians, also, either literally or figuratively 
speaking, either physically or spiritually, have 
our "thorns in the flesh:" not Paul's thorn 
perhaps, not any one's else thorn exactly ; but 
still a "thorn," a real thorn, our own personal 
or individual thorn. 

Any great trial that has come upon us : 
bodily pain of some kind, continued ill health, 
disappointed hopes, frustrated plans in life, 
loss of wealth, some buried sorrow in our do- 
mestic life, the slander of some enemy, the be- 
trayal of our confidence by some once trusted 
friend, the continued impenitence and wicked- 
ness of some precious acquaintance or relative, 
the death of loved ones dear to us as life itself, 
struggles with poverty and anxiety for our 
future wants, sorrow over the low condition 
of the Church, grief because of the Christian 
inconsistencies of others, and lamentation es- 
pecially over some humiliating spiritual weak- 
155 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ness or "besetting sin" of our own; all these 
are now "thorns in the flesh" in Christian ex- 
perience. One or the other of these, or of 
some yet other similar experience, is the "thorn 
in the flesh" now of every true child of God. 
We all, as we walk heavenward, carry buried 
somewhere in our being, a weakness, an in- 
firmity, a special temptation, ,a great hidden 
sorrow, of some kind, known, perhaps, only 
to God and to ourselves, which is our "thorn 
in the flesh." 

II. But let us now inquire, as our second 
question : Why was this "thorn in the flesh" 
thus given to the Apostle ? 

The divine purpose in it, Paul himself here 
plainly declares. It was given him, that is, 
God allowed Satan to give it to him, "lest he 
should be exalted above measure by the abund- 
ance of the revelations" with which he had 
been favored. By that expression : "the abund- 
ance of the revelations," he evidently refers to 
the ecstatic trance, related in the context, in 
which, as he tells us, he was caught up into 
Paradise, and was favored with such a glori- 
ous and rapturous vision of the future life of 
156 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

God's people that words utterly failed him, 
inspired as he was, to describe it. His lan- 
guage is : "I knew a man in Christ, about 
fourteen years ago, whether in the body I 
cannot tell, or whether out of the body I can- 
not tell, God knoweth, such an one caught up 
to the third heavens ; and I knew such a man, 
whether in the body or out of the body, God 
knoweth, how that he was caught up into 
Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which 
it is not lawful, or possible, for a man to utter." 
Who was this man? Evidently, as the whole 
context shows, it was Paul himself. He was 
"the man in Christ/' or the Christian man, 
who had been thus highly favored with this 
celestial vision. 

But, right in this now, lay, also, as God 
saw, his spiritual danger. Great gifts, and 
even great spiritual graces, are always sources 
of great spiritual peril. So here, in this spe- 
cial divine favor vouchsafed the Apostle, there 
lurked a source to him of real spiritual danger. 
What was it ? Why, danger of spiritual pride ; 
danger of self-conceit; danger of vain per- 
sonal elation; danger that he would grow 
157 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

proud of the fact that God had thus singled 
him out and granted to him what He granted 
to no others ; danger that he might feel : "I, 
Paul, am more than an ordinary Christian; 
am endowed with gifts superior to others; 
am favored of God above others." That, I 
say, was Paul's especial spiritual danger, at 
that time, because of the especial spiritual ex- 
altation and honor which had been placed on 
him in the vision of celestial glory which he 
had just enjoyed. 

And now, because of this spiritual danger 
to which he was thus exposed, in order to 
save him from the spiritual pride and self-con- 
ceit, and self-sufficiency, which would have 
been a great weakness in his Christian char- 
acter, and would have robbed him of that 
fine Christian power which springs from hu- 
mility and lowliness of spirit, there was given 
him this "thorn in the flesh/' this "messenger 
of Satan to bufifet him," to keep him humble, 
to check his rising vanity, to take him down 
or keep him down from any high pedestal of 
self-glorification to which otherwise he might 
have mounted. As he himself says, "Lest I 
158 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

should be exalted above measure through the 
abundance of the revelations, there was given 
to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of 
Satan to buffet me." 

Thus to humble His children, to save them 
from the spiritual dangers to which, because 
of His very goodness to them, because of the 
superior gifts with which He has endowed 
them, and graces He has bestowed on them, 
and positions to which He has exalted them, 
and honors and influence with which He has 
crowned them, He often finds it necessary, 
along with His abundant revelations of His 
goodness to them, also to give them some trial, 
some affliction, some sorrow, some "thorn in 
the flesh" of some kind, to humble them, to 
take them out of all conceit of themselves, 
and to keep them in lowly and humble depend- 
ence upon Him. 

It is with this divine purpose of love; with 
this intent, on God's part, to impart to us 
thorns to buffet us in life's experience : thorns 
not only in our flesh, but often also in the 
very marrow and quick of our souls. It is 
all done for our good. God's thorns hurt; 
i59 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

but still they all have a blessing in them. And 
God plants them in our being, and allows 
others to plant them there, not because He 
delights in our quivering suffering as they 
pierce and force their way into us, and then 
often remain lodged in us, as sources of con- 
scious weakness and self-humiliation to us, 
down to the very close of our earthly exist- 
ence, but only because, as in Paul's case, He 
means to give to us some richer and higher 
spiritual experience and greater spiritual pow- 
er than we, without them, could possibly at- 
tain. 

And what effective cures for our vanity, 
and self-righteousness, and spiritual pride, 
these "thorns in the flesh" are! Has God 
given you some specially fine endowment; 
some "talent" or "gift" which lifts you above 
most of your fellow men? .Has He granted 
you some special spiritual favor: some unus- 
ual religious experience, some clearness of spir- 
itual vision, some specially joyous communion 
with God? And now, you, perhaps, are spir- 
itually proud of this divine exaltation; or, if 
not, there is, at least, danger than you will 
160 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

be. And so God gives you a "thorn/' some 
trial, or sorrow, to keep you humble and de- 
pendent on Him. Or the "thorn," perhaps, is 
some great conscious defect in your Christian 
character: your ungovernable temper, your 
hasty speech, your uncharitable spirit, your in- 
consistent life, your selfishness showing itself 
in a hundred ways : weakness in yourself of 
which you are heartily ashamed, thorns which 
sting you into moral self-loathing, so that, in- 
stead of being proud or vain of your spiritual 
strength or of your superior piety and good- 
ness, you lie humbled in the dust under an 
abasing sense of your spiritual weakness and 
sinfulness and you despise yourself. And 
hence, paradoxical as it may appear, the holier 
you grow, the greater also under this disci- 
pline of God will become your sense of your 
unholiness ; so that, at last, like Paul himself, 
in the last epistle which he wrote, you will 
cast away from you every vestige of self- 
righteousness, and will rely only on the mer- 
its of Christ for salvation, saying: "It is a 
faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, 
161 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

that Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
sinners, of whom I am the chief." 

Blessed be God, then, for these "thorns in 
the flesh," these experiences of our Christian 
life which make us conscious of our spiritual 
weakness, which humble us, which drive and 
hold us to God, which cause us to cling always 
and only, for pardon, and strength, and sal- 
vation, to the Lord Jesus Christ! 

III. But we must now yet consider : What 
Paul did with his thorn. 

,He did with it simply what was the wisest 
and most Christian thing that he could have 
done, namely : he carried it to Christ in prayer. 

It was a great annoyance and humiliation 
and real grief to him; and hence he wanted 
very much to get rid of it and to go on through 
life without it. And so he prayed earnestly 
and repeatedly for its removal. "For this 
thing," he says, "I besought the Lord thrice 
that it might depart from me." 

In all this he did entirely right. A "thorn 

in the flesh" of no kind is pleasant; neither 

are thorns of any kind, in themselves, apart 

from God's grace, a blessing. By God's grace, 

162 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

sanctifying us under them and through them, 
they can be made to us very great blessings, 
but in themselves, I repeat, they are no bless- 
ings. And hence Paul very properly submit- 
ted his thorn in prayer to the Lord, and asked 
Him, if it was in accordance with His will, 
to take it out, to relieve him of it. Jesus 
did the same with His great trial or sorrow 
in the Garden of Gethsemane. He also there 
prayed three times that the cup, "if possible/' 
might be removed from Him. 

And this is the privilege of each one of 
us, also, in all our trials of life, of whatever 
character. Whatever may be the "thorn" that 
pierces us, we are justifiable in asking God 
to remove it from us. .Some of our thorns 
we ought, indeed, pray God very vigorously 
and persistently to get out of us; e. g., all 
those bad thorns of our remaining depravity; 
the thorns of sin and selfishness that are purely 
of Satan's planting, that are always and only 
a moral weakness in us and an injury to oth- 
ers, and that God wants to rid us of as soon 
as possible: for the removal of all that bad 
lot of thorns let us daily pray. 
163 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

But we are justifiable, also, in praying God, 
if it be His will, to remove from us any thorn 
that pierces us, that is, any sorrow, any trial 
of life under which we may be suffering. 

But was Paul's thorn in answer to his pray- 
er divinely removed ? No. It was not. God 
saw best, both for Paul's own highest good, 
and for the greatest good, through Paul, to 
others, that it should not be taken away. That 
thorn had a blessing in it, both for Paul and 
for many others. And so, painful and humil- 
iating and trying to the blessed man as it was, 
God did not, even in answer to his earnest 
prayer, take it away. He kept it there; and 
Paul, I suppose, carried that "thorn" of his 
down with him all through life. God does 
not always grant even to the holiest of His 
children what they pray for : simply because 
He knows better than they do what is best 
for them. 

Their prayers, however, are still not un- 
answered. God may not, as here in Paul's case, 
give them just the very thing for which they 
pray. He will yet, however, always, in answer 
to their prayers give them something; and 
164 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

always, also, will He give them something 
much better than they had asked for. 

It was so here in Paul's case. The "thorn" 
was not removed as he had prayed that it 
might be; but Paul received, in answer to his 
prayer, such a precious promise from God 
that he could, indeed, well afford to keep his 
thorn. That promise was : "My grace is suf- 
ficient for thee, for My strength is made per- 
fect in weakness." A promise which, fully 
interpreted, means, "Keep your thorn, Paul. 
It is painful to you, I know ; and, as your 
Heavenly Father, I feel for you as you suf- 
fer under it. It is not, however, best to take 
it away. It is best for you and for others 
that it remain. But this I now promise you : 
I will give you very especial grace to bear 
it; I will make that thorn of yours a very 
spring of richest spiritual blessings to you; 
I will so bless and comfort and strengthen 
you under all that you suffer from it, that, 
instead of not wanting it, you will come to 
thank and praise me for it." This is what 
God promised. 

And all that God thus promised to the 
165 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Apostle, He, also, gloriously fulfilled. And 
hence, fourteen years afterward, when Paul 
wrote this epistle, he thanks God for his 
"thorn." It had been the occasion of great 
spiritual strength and blessing to him. It had 
secured for him wonderful experiences of 
God's grace. It had been a means to his sanc- 
tification. It had brought him steadily nearer 
to God. It had increased his spiritual power 
in the ministry. It had ripened him for 
Heaven. And so he blessed God for his 
"thorn." "Most gladly, therefore," he ex- 
claims, "will I rather glory in mine infirmities 
that the power of Christ may rest upon me." 

But this Promise, Christian Friends, is ours 
as well as Paul's. To us, as well as to him, 
God says : "My grace is sufficient for thee." 
To us, too, He says : "The pain and burden 
of your thorn I will help you to bear, and I 
will make it a blessing to you, and you will 
come eventually to praise me for it." 

And so He will. For every sorrow of life 
His grace will be sufficient for us. Every 
trial has a blessing in it for us. For every 
166 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

thorn that now pierces us we shall praise and 
bless God eternally. 

Have you, then, Christian Friends, any spe- 
cial sorrow, or weakness, or sin: any "thorn" 
that has entered your soul and is distress- 
ing you ? Do with it as Paul did with his : 
carry it to God in prayer! If, by His grace, 
He does not remove it from you, He will do 
for you something infinitely better : He will 
give you grace to bear it and grace to sanctify 
it to you, and grace to comfort you under it, 
and grace to strengthen you spiritually through 
it, and grace to save you by it; so that, at 
last, when you have reached heaven, you will 
look back over your earth-life; and think of 
your "thorn" and will say : "Blessed Thorn ! 
How much I owe to it! God, I thank Thee 
for having ever given me that thorn." 



167* 



PAUL'S UNWAVERING CON- 
FIDENCE IN CHRIST. 

TEXT. 

"/ know whom I have believed, and am persuaded 
that He is able to keep that which I have committed 
unto Him against that day" — 2 Timothy i. 2. 

There is nothing that gives us such assur- 
ance of the reality and blessedness of our holy 
Christian religion as the testimony to its pre- 
ciousness by the dying. We feel that a religion 
that in that hour sustains and comforts and 
gladdens the soul, possesses indeed divine 
power, and is all that it claims, and all that we 
desire and need. 

Such dying testimony in favor of the sus- 
taining power and comfort of Christ and 
Christianity, St. Paul gives here in these words 
of our text. He had often borne his testimony 
to its divine character in his active lifetime, 
when in health and strength, and when death 
168 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

was yet in the distant future. But now, shut 
up in a Roman prison, forsaken by friends, 
aged, expecting each moment to be led out to 
a martyr's cruel death — how now? "More 
precious now," he answers; "than ever. More 
convinced of its divine reality now than I have 
ever been. It is now all that I could possibly 
desire; Christ is to me now an all-sufficient, 
a divine Saviour. My faith in Him now sus- 
tains, cheers, strengthens me. I know whom 
I have believed, and am persuaded that He is 
able to keep that which I have committed unto 
Him against that day/' 

Let us analyze this hopeful and confident 
language of the great apostle, and see how 
much there is in it to stimulate our faith and 
to brighten our hope. 

The subject which it presents is : 

"The Apostle's Faith :" And concerning 
this faith of his, he here tells us three things, 
namely : 

I. The Object of His Faith : "Whom I 
have believed." 

169 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

II. The Nature of His Faith: "That 
which I have committed to Him against that 
day." And then, 

III. The Certainty of His Faith : "I 
know Whom I have believed. I am per- 
suaded," that is, convinced, certain, assured 
beyond a doubt. 

Let us look at these three thoughts. 

I. The Object of His Trust. 

That Object was not a thing, but a Person. 
It was a belief, not in a "religion," but in a 
Redeemer; a faith, not in Christianity, but in 
Christ ; a trust, not in a plan of salvation, but 
in a Saviour ; not in a creed only, but a Christ ; 
and not a Christ only, but the Christ; the 
Christ of actual fact, the Christ of scripture, 
the "God Man," as set forth in the gospel, in- 
carnate, atoning, risen, ascended, glorified. It 
was faith in Christ as a person ; a trust of him- 
self as a being to Christ as a being, to save 
him. And hence he does not here say, "I know 
what I have believed," but he says, "I know 
Whom I have believed." And he does not 
170 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

even say, as he might, "in Whom/' but directly 
"Whom" ; as though he would not allow even 
so small a thing as that little preposition "in" 
to come between him and Christ ; meaning thus 
to teach us that his faith rested directly and 
solidly, not on something about Christ, or re- 
lating to Christ, but on Christ Himself, His 
very person, as well as His work. 

And true, saving faith is always thus faith 
in Christ as a "person." "This is life eternal, 
that they might know Thee, the only true 
God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent." 
And again we are repeatedly told: "Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ," not simply on some- 
thing concerning Him, but on Him, on Him 
directly, as a person, "and thou shalt be saved." 

And so everywhere in the Bible. Its one 
command to every inquiring soul is : "Believe 
on the Lord Jesus Christ, the divine human 
person, the One only all-sufficient Saviour, 
Son of God and Son of man, offered of God 
as a Saviour, and thou shalt be saved." All 
creeds and all systems of theology and all the 
teachings of the church concerning Christ, in 
171 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

so far as they are indeed the teachings of God's 
word concerning Christ, are, of course, divine 
truth and must be accepted, and, because they 
are God's word concerning salvation, there can 
be no saving faith, no salvation, without ac- 
cepting them. But there is such a thing as 
accepting truth concerning Christ without sav- 
ingly accepting Christ. Hence, the sacred 
Scriptures say: "Believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 

Now right here lies a source of very great 
spiritual danger to us all. We are in danger 
of believing something about Christ. That 
"something" may be all true, and just what we 
ought to believe, and must believe, in order 
to be saved, and yet not be all that we must 
believe, or the vital thing that we must believe 
in order to be saved. A Christian Creed is all 
true, but it is all only a formulated statement 
of truth concerning Christ. It is not itself 
Christ, but only something about Christ. And 
hence, he whose object of faith is his creed, 
however thoroughly Christian and orthodox, 
and who rests in his acceptance as divine truth 
of its articles, who goes in faith thus far and 
172 j 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

no farther, has not yet truly and savingly be- 
lieved. We must not only believe all that the 
Scriptures teach about Christ, but we must also 
believe Christ; not the doctrine only, but the 
living divine Saviour-Person. 

The two things surely are not the same. 
There is certainly a vital difference between 
believing even true things concerning Christ, 
and, in the Scriptural sense of saving faith or 
trust, believing Christ. In the one case, we 
give intellectual assent to the truth; in the 
other, we give ourselves in trust to the Being 
of whom the truth speaks. In the one, we are 
logically convinced of what we ought to do 
concerning Christ; in the other we act upon 
our convictions, and positively do what we 
are convinced we ought to do. In the one 
case, we intellectually accept a System of 
Christian Doctrine; in the other, we cast our- 
selves helplessly for Salvation upon a Personal, 
Living, Divine Saviour. In the one case, in a 
word, we give the consent of our judgment, 
the approval of our conscience; in the other, 
we give our supreme affections, our act of will, 
our individual choice of Christ, our full sur- 
i73 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

render of ourselves to Him, the confident re- 
pose of our soul upon the beating heart of 
Christ. 

And this brings us now to notice : 

II. The nature of Paul's faith. 

As expressed here in our text. To see the 
difference of which I have spoken between 
believing even Bible truth concerning Christ 
and believing Christ, notice carefully how Paul 
here describes the exact character of his faith 
in Christ. What was the exact character of 
his faith? What, in its essential nature, was 
his faith ? Study his language, as he here de- 
scribes it. It was, he tells us, you will observe, 
an act. He did something with himself toward 
Christ. He represents himself as having given 
something to Christ to keep for him. "That 
which I have committed unto Him against that 
day." And what had Paul thus given or com- 
mitted to Christ for safe-keeping? Himself, 
His own soul, that soul which through sin was 
lost, w 7 hich he himself could not save, which 
Christ only could save. That soul of his, that 
is, himself, he tells us, by an act of his will, as 
i74 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

an act of trust, he had deliberately taken from 
his own keeping and laid on the Outstretched 
and Almighty Arms of Christ to keep for him. 

Paul's Faith, therefore, you see, was more 
than an "opinion" : it was an "act." It was 
more than believing something concerning 
Christ : it was an actual giving something to 
Christ. And that "something" was the most 
precious thing he had : his own soul, his im- 
mortality, his destiny for eternity. All that, 
as if he had reached into himself and taken 
himself out of himself, and then carried him- 
self to Christ, he thus trusted, for safe-keeping ; 
to Christ, with fullest confidence of its perfect 
safety there. Just as you might take your 
most precious jewels, or your most valuable 
papers, or your most costly treasures of any 
kind, and carry them to a "Bank of Deposit," 
and say: "Keep these for me; in my keeping 
they are not safe ; in yours they are." It was 
a committing, a committing or giving of him- 
self, for safe-keeping, to Christ. 

And that, and nothing less than that, is 
just what saving faith is. Not in the case of 
Paul's salvation only, but in yours, and in 
175 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

mine, and in the case of all persons: only he 
who thus believes on Christ is saved. Only 
he that thus, as a perishing sinner, gives him- 
self to Christ as a real, living, personal, divine 
Saviour, is saved. 

To illustrate this nature of faith as an act 
of the soul's full trust of itself for salvation 
upon Christ, suppose you and I had engaged 
passage for Liverpool upon the same ocean 
steamer. The vessel is ready to sail, and we 
stand together upon the wharf before her. 
She is a grand vessel. As we stand there and 
look at her I am carried away with admiration 
of her. I praise her fine proportions, her sym- 
metry, her magnitude, her elegance. I tell 
those around what a magnificent steamer she is. 
I tell of the many successful voyages she has 
made. But now, when the time comes to go 
on board of her, to trust myself to her, with 
all my fine talking about her, I am afraid. I 
refuse to risk myself on her. I say: "She 
may sink, and I perish; I will stay where I 
am." Now, have I faith in that vessel? Yes, 
some faith, but not a sufficient faith; not the 
faith of trust, of self-committal; not the faith 
176 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

which will move me to put myself on the ves- 
sel, and which I need in order to get myself 
across the sea and into the destined foreign 
harbor. You have that needed confidence in 
her; you put yourself trustingly on her; and 
you are carried safely across. Your faith is 
a trust; it leads you to act; it moves you to 
commit yourself, your very life, your whole 
being to that vessel. If she sinks, you sink. 
But you have faith in her to believe that she 
will not sink, and hence you give yourself to 
her. And that is the nature of saving faith 
in Christ. Like Paul's, it is a committing of 
one's self to Christ. It is, by an act of your 
soul or will, putting yourself on Christ, just 
as, by an act of your will, you put yourself 
in trust on that vessel. 

Dr. Chalmers, it is said, on one occasion, 
went, as a pastor, to visit a lady who was under 
deep conviction of sin, but who could not some- 
how rightly understand and exercise saving 
faith in Christ as her Saviour from sin. In 
front of her home was a small stream of 
water, across which was a board or plank. As 
the Doctor approached her home and came to 
177 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

this plank he saw that it was weak, and hes- 
itated for a moment to trust himself on it. 
The lady saw him and called out to him : "Put 
yourself boldly on it, Doctor; it will bear 
you." And so, when he had reached the home, 
and was trying to simplify to the woman the 
nature of faith in Christ, and tell her what 
believing in Christ was, he used her own lan- 
guage to him: to trust himself on the plank, 
as an illustration. He told her that thus just 
as he, trusting her word, had put himself on 
that plank, so she, trusting God's Word, must 
put herself on Christ. "Is that faith?" she 
asked. "Is that all that saving faith is?" 
"That," he said, "is saving faith. That only 
is. He that thus believes on Christ is saved." 
"How simple," she exclaimed. "I see it all 
now. I do thus now commit my soul for sal- 
vation to Him." 

And that, Christian friends, is true saving 
faith : it is, by the power given us by the 
Holy Ghost, a putting of ourselves as sinners 
on Christ as a Saviour: a full trusting of 
ourselves to Him for salvation. 

And now notice : 

178 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

III. The Strength or Assurance of 
Paul's Faith. 

Having thus committed his soul to Christ, 
did he feel uncertain or doubtful about the 
safety of his soul in the keeping of Christ? 
Not in the least. On the contrary, his faith 
rises into highest assurance. He has given his 
soul to Christ to keep for him, to save, to 
preserve for him. And he knows that He also 
can and will do it. He does not only hope 
that he will be saved, or expect, or think, that 
he will be, but he knows that he will be. He 
is sure that he will be. His faith is a cer- 
tainty. "I know," he exclaims, "whom I have 
believed ;" no mere man, no angel, no highest 
archangel, but one diviner and greater than 
all — the God-Man, the Almighty Saviour, 
Christ Jesus, "able to save unto the uttermost ;" 
and this being the character of Him to Whom 
I have committed my soul, I am sure that in 
His hands it is safe. He, I am persuaded, 
convinced, assured beyond a doubt, is able to 
keep it against that day. Even in the Great 
Judgment Day, when the heavens shall be 
wrapped in flame, and the earth shall be dis- 
179 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

solved, and all nature shall tremble under the 
footstep of the descending Judge, and men's 
hearts shall be filled with fear, and even the 
great ones of earth shall call upon the moun- 
tains and rocks to hide them from the face of 
Him that sitteth upon the throne, even then I 
shall be secure. He will keep me. He is able 
to keep me. He has promised to keep me. 
Committed as I am in His hands, I cannot 
possibly perish." Or, as elsewhere he ex- 
presses it: "I am persuaded that neither 
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, 
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
creature, shall be able to separate us from the 
love of God which is in Christ Jesus." What 
strong assurance, what certainty of faith such 
language expresses. But such was Paul's faith. 
He knew Whom he had believed. "I am per- 
suaded," he exclaims, "of the full ability of 
Jesus Christ to save me." Such was Paul's 
assurance of his salvation. 

And you notice it is an assurance that is all 
based on what Christ is, and not in any respect 
because of anything that he himself is. All 
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Joy in the Divine Government. 

that he has done is just, as a poor sinner, una- 
ble'to save himself, to throw himself on Christ 
to save him; and then, because of Christ's 
promise and Christ's ability, feel sure that he 
will be saved. He himself is weak, but Christ 
is strong ; unworthy, but Christ is worthy ; sin- 
ful, but Christ is holy; a perishing soul, but 
Christ is an Omnipotent Saviour. And so Paul, 
as you notice, has no doubt whatever about his 
salvation, simply because he never forgets in 
Whose hands his salvation is; how great a 
Saviour his Saviour is ; how absolutely impos- 
sible it is for any soul that has trustingly laid 
itself for salvation into Christ's hands ever to 
drop out of them into eternal death. "My 
salvation," he cries, "is sure, for I know Whom 
I have believed, and am assured that He is 
able to keep that which I have committed unto 
Him against that day. Not I, but He." 

Christian Friends, this assurance of faith 
which Paul thus possessed, you and I, as 
Christians, ought to possess. Its possession is 
both our privilege and our duty. We both 
dishonor our Saviour and we rob ourselves 
by not having it. Why should we not possess 
181 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

it? If Christ is able to save at all, He is able 
to save fully. If His blood has sufficient aton- 
ing power in it to blot out one single sin it 
has atoning power enough in it to blot out 
the whole record. If He is able to bring us 
part way towards heaven, He is able to bring 
us all the way. He is either no Saviour at 
all, or else He is a perfect, an all-sufficient, 
an Almighty Saviour. 

And such absolutely perfect Saviour is just 
the kind of Saviour the Scriptures everywhere 
exhibit Him. "Mighty to save" ; "able to save 
unto the uttermost all that come unto God 
through Him" ; His blood "blood that cleanses 
from all sin"; both "the Author and Finisher 
of our Faith" ; both "the Alpha and the Omega, 
the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, 
which is, and which was, and which is to 
come, the Almighty." , 

Thus great and perfect a Saviour is Christ. 
How worthy, then, of our perfect trust. 
And hence how we dishonor Him by not fully 
trusting ourselves, as Paul did, to 'Him. Be- 
ing in Himself "the fullness of the Godhead 
bodily," an infinite, boundless, inexhaustible 
182 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ocean of grace and salvation, how we wrong 
Him by withholding from Him our full faith, 
as though, possibly after all, we could not 
safely trust our all to Him. 

And yet many professing Christians do, just 
in that half-measure way, believe on Christ. 
They have never yet risen up to the assurance 
of faith. They have never yet come to say: 
"I know Whom I have believed," "I am per- 
suaded, convinced, assured, of the full pardon 
of all my sins, of my reconciliation to God, of 
my adoption as His child of the entire safety 
of my soul in the keeping of Christ." They 
have never come, I say, into the Pauline posi- 
tiveness and fulness, and certainty of faith. 
They walk only in the dim twilight of Chris- 
tian confidence. Their best Christian vocabu- 
lary can say only, "I think, I hope." Their 
piety can speak only in the subjunctive mood: 
"Possibly I may be saved." 

Paul, on the contrary, knew. "I know 
Whom I have believed; I am sure that He 
is able to keep that which I have committed 
unto Him." And John knew. "We know," 
he cries, "that we have passed from death unto 
183 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

life." And Peter knew. "Thou," he ex- 
claims, "art the Christ, the Son of the Living 
God." And Thomas knew. "My Lord and 
my God," is the glad utterance of his assured 
faith. And Job knew. "I know that my Re- 
deemer liveth." And thousands and millions 
of God's saints have thus known, walking 
through life in the abiding assurance of their 
acceptance with God, and of the certainty of 
their salvation, because their faith rested un- 
shaken upon God's pledged word in Christ. 
Not because of what they were in themselves, 
but because of what Christ was, and because 
of what Christ had suffered and done for 
them, and because of what God had in His 
Word promised to them for Christ's sake, 
which Word of God their faith fully accepted 
and trusted, they knew that they were saved. 
Not that they would be saved, but were now 
already saved. Their salvation was not merely 
a hope, but an assurance, a blessed certainty. 
With Paul they could say: "I know." 

And then, how we, also, by this feebleness 
of our faith in Christ as our Saviour, rob 
ourselves. 

184 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

If Christ is what the Scriptures say to us 
that He is, and what Paul took and found 
Him to be, and what to thousands and millions 
of Christians, in all ages, He has, by blessed 
experience, proven Himself to be, then we have 
in Him a fulness of salvation for every want 
of our spiritual being, both for this life and 
for the life to come. By faith we may reach 
out and take to ourselves from Him a supply 
for our every possible want. Taking Him, 
we have all. 

Is it pardon of our sins we want? Is it 
reconciliation to God we want? Is it comfort 
under the sorrows of life we want? Is it 
strength for life's duties we want? Is it 
power over temptation we want? Is it deliv- 
erance from the dominion of sin within us 
that we want? Is it holiness and greater like- 
ness to God we want ? Is it assurance of sal- 
vation we want ? Is it triumph over death we 
want ? Is it the resurrection of our bodies, the 
blissful immortality of our souls, is it heaven 
and holiness and happiness and home eternally 
with God we want? Oh, if our faith would 
but lay hold on them, they are all laid up for 
185 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

us in Christ, and offered to us, as our unlim- 
ited possession in Christ! 

"All things," says Paul, in his letter to the 
Corinthian Christians, "all things are yours, 
whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the 
world, or life or death, or things present, or 
things to come : all are yours and ye are 
Christ's and Christ is God's." And writing 
to the Romans, he says : "He that spared not 
His own Son, but delivered Him up for us 
all, how shall He not with Him also freely 
give us all thing's?" 

Thus is Christ, as a Saviour, a great infinite 
treasure-house both of grace now and of glory 
hereafter. In Him is offered to us an abun- 
dant supply for every need. Empty, we can fill 
ourselves with the very fulness of God. Sin- 
ful, we can through Him be made white as 
the driven snow. Dead, in Him we can have 
life, and can have it abundantly. "Christ 
Jesus," says Paul, "is of God made unto us 
wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, 
and redemption." What a sweep of blessings, 
both for time and for eternity, that includes! 
How it embraces the whole circle of our wants 
186 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

both now and forever! The soul, means the 
Apostle, that has Christ, has all. Or as the 
poet has sung: 

"Jesus Christ is my All in All, 
My Comfort and my Love ; 

My Life below, and He shall be 
My Joy and Crown above." 



187 



UN-UPLIFTED SAVIOUR 
THE GREAT ATTRACTION. 

TEXT. 

"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will drazv 
all men unto Me" — John xii. 32, 

In some relation, when Jesus died upon the 
Cross of Calvary, every rational and spiritual 
being in all the universe fixed its eye upon 
Him and turned, as it were, to behold and con- 
sider that awful tragedy which was there, in 
His Death, transpiring. All with feelings of 
some kind, as He here in our Text predicts, 
were drawn to Him. 

God, His Divine Father, was then drawn to 
Him; every attribute of the Godhead inter- 
ested ; divine love melted into pity, divine jus- 
tice satisfied, divine holiness vindicated and 
gloriously revealed. 

The Angelic Hosts of Heaven were then 
drawn to Him, lost in wonder over that mys- 
tery of mysteries, the death, in agony and 
shame, for sinful man, of Him Whom in His 
188 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

celestial glory they had worshipped as their 
Divine Lord and King. 

,Satan, also, and all his fallen spirits, in 
that hour, were then drawn to the sight of 
that uplifted Christ, knowing that then, by 
that wondrous death, their sceptre of moral 
dominion over man was being broken, and 
that the lost human race was then being de- 
livered from their thralldom and restored again 
to God. 

And, to that Uplifted Dying Saviour were 
also then drawn all classes, and all conditions, 
and all characters of human spectators. The 
prejudiced and malignant Scribes and Phari- 
sees, rejoicing in their supposed victory, at 
last, over Him ; the embittered and raging Jew- 
ish Multitude crying out : "His blood be upon 
us and upon our children" ; the noble company 
of Holy Women, faithful to Him even when 
boasting Apostles had forsaken Him and fled ; 
the Convicted Centurian, testifying: "Truly 
this was the Son of God" ; the Penitent Thief, 
meekly praying: "Lord, remember me when 
Thou comest into Thy Kingdom" ; the Rough 
Soldiers, plunging the cruel Spear into His 
189 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Holy side, and casting lots for His seamless 
robe; the Beloved Disciple John, standing 
silently and gazing up with tearful look of 
sympathy and love into His marred and sor- 
row-stricken face; His Mother, into whose 
soul, at last, as the aged Simeon long before 
had predicted, the sword had indeed entered ; 
the Awe-Struck Spectators, filled with alarm 
as they beheld the Sun veil himself in dark- 
ness, the earth quake, the Temple Veil rend 
itself in twain from top to bottom, the Rocks 
rend, the Graves open, the Sheeted and Buried 
leap into life — all these were observers of that 
dying scene of the Son of God, and beheld 
as He, the Uplifted and Atoning Saviour then 
and there laid down His life as a ransom for 
guilty man. , 

Literally, then, did Jesus, "lifted up on the 
Cross," draw all to Him. God and Man, 
Heaven and Hell, Earth and Sky, Friend and 
Foe, Angels both of light and of darkness, 
Beings both visible and invisible, incarnate 
and unincarnate, all, all, all, in that pivotal hour 
in the world's history, either in love or in hate, 
either in friendship or in enmity, were attract- 
190 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ed, directed, "drawn/' to Him who there ex- 
pired as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of 
the world. Yes : the Universe gathered there ; 
and beheld and listened; and, in some way, 
were all affected by that wondrous death which 
was there endured. The beams of moral in- 
fluence, radiating from that uplifted Cross of 
Christ, like the out-going rays of some bril- 
liant calcium light, rose up to Heaven, pierced 
down into the very darkness of Hell, and illu- 
mined the whole wide universe of God. Then, 
being there, on the Cross, lifted up, Jesus did, 
as He foretold, draw all, literally all, all na- 
ture, all men, all angels, all fiends, all be- 
ings, human, angelic, spiritual, divine unto 
Himself. "And I if I be lifted up on the 
Cross from the earth there to die as I will, 
an atoning death, I will, by My death, and 
in My very act of dying, draw all, as to one 
great center, unto Me." 

But these words of Jesus have a deeper sig- 
nification than this merely historical or literal 
one. They possessed in His mind, when He 
uttered them, an infinitely higher sense. Pro- 
phetically they express also a great spiritual 
191 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

fact ; a present and ever abiding spiritual truth ; 
a divine promise, left to the Church as a legacy 
from her Ascended Lord, even to the end of 
time, for guidance and encouragement. "And 
I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 
all men unto Me." 

By this Jesus means, we may say, 

That if he be morally and spiritually 
lifted up, he will morally and spiritual- 
ly draw men to himself. 

The Uplifted Christ is still the great Attrac- 
tion. Jesus, if held up rightly before the 
world, will now as ever, draw to Himself the 
World. 

"If I be lifted up; if I be spiritually lifted 
up by My Church before the world, as the 
world's one and only Saviour ; if I be preached 
truly and faithfully by My Ministry; if I be 
exhibited aright in the holy life and charac- 
ter of My people ; if I be labored for earnestly, 
by mind and heart and tongue and time and 
talent and influence and wealth and sacrifice, 
on the part of all My professed disciples ; if I 
be thus "lifted up/' if only this one simple 
condition be complied with, then will I draw all 
192 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

men unto Me, all classes, all ages, all characters. 
Then will I convict, convert, sanctify and save 
all kinds of souls. Then, as the magnet draws 
to itself the filings of steel, as the moon moves 
and sways under her influence the tides of the 
sea, as the sun attracts and holds in their 
orbits the worlds and planets of the great 
Solar System, so will I also, by My attractive 
grace, by the divine moral magnetism of My 
Being and Character, gather to myself the 
nations, and everywhere draw to Myself the 
hearts of the children of men. Then will I 
build Zion as a City, and then will I cause 
My glory to cover the earth as the waters 
cover the sea." 

Such, I believe, is the deep spiritual signifi- 
cation of this language of the Saviour; and 
this is the great spiritual truth which here, in 
these words, He inculcates. 

But is this, indeed, a truth? Does Jesus, 
if presented aright to the hearts and consciences 
of the children of men, thus draw them unto 
Himself? Is there this spiritual "attractive- 
ness" in the Uplifted Christ? For your 
answer turn to the history, for a moment, of 
193 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

the Christian Church. On every page of that 
history from the very birthday of Christianity 
down to this present hour, there may be found 
an abundance of confirmation. From every 
part of it flashes out the evidence that an 
earnest faithful "lifting up" of Christ, by the 
Ministry and by the Church, has always re- 
sulted in the drawing of men to Christ, in 
their conviction, conversion, salvation. John 
the Baptist thus in the Wilderness of Judea 
and on the banks of the Jordan uplifted Him, 
saying to all around: "Behold the Lamb of 
God that taketh away the sins of the world/' 
and some immediately became His disciples. 
Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, thus uplifted 
Him, and, at once, drawn by the magnetism of 
His grace, three thousand convicted and peni- 
tent souls believed on Him and confessed Him 
as their Saviour. Paul, also, thus uplifted 
Him, in Rome, in Thessalonica, in Corinth, 
in Philippi, in Athens, in innumerable places 
and nations, everywhere with earnest eloquence 
pointing men to Him as their one only Re- 
deemer, bidding all "Believe on Him if they 
would be saved," and lo! everywhere multi- 
194 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

tudes, drawn to Him by the preciousness of 
His character and His divine ability to satisfy 
all the deep longings of their hearts, did be- 
lieve on Him and found in Him the peace 
and life for which they sought. And thus also 
did all the Apostles uplift Him, beginning at 
Jerusalem, then finding their way to the ends 
of the earth, holding Him up in the streets 
of Rome and even in the palace of the Caesars, 
in Scythia on the north, in distant India on 
the east, in Gaul on the west, in Egypt and 
Ethiopia on the south, everywhere publish- 
ing Him as the Divine Christ, as Jesus and the 
Resurrection, as the one only and sufficient 
Saviour for sinful and sorrowful and perish- 
ing humanity ; and soon, as the result of such 
uplifting of Christ, Christianity became the 
victorious and acknowledged Religion of the 
civilized world. This new Faith, whose sym- 
bol was the Cross, seated itself upon the mighty 
throne of the Roman Empire, silenced the 
wisdom of the Schools, closed the Temples of 
Paganism, put out the fires of sacrifice upon 
the altars of heathen idolatry, and everywhere 
reared Houses of Prayer and Praise and Wor- 
195 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ship, in the name of Christ, to the one only 
true God. Thus, by the Uplifting of Christ, 
did Christ draw, in the early days of Chris- 
tianity, all the World to Himself. 

And thus, also, in all the centuries since those 
early and grand aggressive days of primitive 
Christianity, whenever and wherever He has 
been truly lifted up by His Church before the 
World, rightly lived and proclaimed by those 
who called themselves His disciples, Jesus has 
drawn souls to Himself and saved them. Al- 
ways, as He here in our text promises, has 
He proved Himself the World's great moral 
attraction. When Wickliffe, for example, 
"bright Morning-star of the Reformation/' up- 
lifted Him in England; when John Huss up- 
lifted Him in Bohemia ; when Luther so brave- 
ly and faithfully uplifted Him in Germany; 
when Calvin and Zwingle uplifted Him in 
Geneva, and throughout the Valleys, and over 
the Alpine Mountains of Switzerland; when 
courageous John Knox uplifted Him in Scot- 
land; when Wesley and Whitfield uplifted 
Him first in the Old World, and then here 
in the New; when the dear Moravians up- 
196 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

lifted Him in Greenland and in the West In- 
dies ; when Ziegenbalg, and Schwartz, and 
Carey uplifted Him in India ; and Judson in 
Burmah ; and Henry Martyn in Persia ; and 
Robert M orison in China ; and David Brain- 
erd and John Eliot and the Swedish Lutherans 
upon the banks of the Delaware, before the 
landing of Penn, among the American Indians ; 
and Moffat and Livingstone and Officer and 
Day uplifted Him in Africa; everywhere, in 
all these places, throughout all these widely 
scattered lands, among all these greatly diver- 
sified tongues and peoples. He did also draw 
all men unto Him. Everywhere the simple 
story of the Cross had divine power. Every- 
where it was clothed with mighty attraction. 
Everywhere it won its way into men's souls, 
subduing their stubborn wills, conquering their 
love of sin, melting their hard hearts into peni- 
tence, bowing them in faith at the feet of 
Jesus, and influencing them to embrace and 
confess Him as their Lord and Saviour. Our 
text, then, expresses an undeniable fact, a 
glorious and most encouraging truth, namely, 
that Jesus, if He be spiritually lifted up, will 
197 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

also spiritually draw men to Him, in nearness 
of character and life, and save them. 

From this truth we may now, in conclusion, 
learn two practical lessons. 

We may learn from it a lesson of Personal 
Duty. That duty is to lift up Jesus; and so 
to lift Him up that the world may see Him 
clearly and fully, and in no clouded or dis- 
torted or erroneous vision, but in all His real 
and true divine-human self, Son of God and 
Son of Man, able and willing Saviour of all 
who will believe on Him, just as He stands 
here revealed to us by the Holy Ghost in the 
written Word. For, only when He is thus 
rightly lifted up, will, or can He draw men 
to Himself. 

Our World, now as ever, is a lost World. 
Men everywhere are in the way of sin and 
death. Jn our own day, and here in our own 
land, sin appears especially to abound. We 
seem to have come in our national history to 
a great moral and religious crisis. The forces 
of evil stand massed today, as perhaps never 
before, against Christ and His Church ; numer- 
ous, skillful, bold, defiant, malignant, united, 
198 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

mighty. Skepticism, Ritualism, Rationalism, 
Mormonism, Communism, Rumism, Anti-Sab- 
bathism, all these stand marshaled, today, 
here in our land, against our holy Protestant 
Christian Faith. Scorn for the Bible as the 
Word of God ; Desecration of the Lord's Day ; 
Contempt for Authority, human and divine; 
Profanity ; Lewdness ; Intemperance ; Worldli- 
ness and Mad Thirst for Wealth; Wicked 
Monopolies and Heartless Trusts; Socialism 
and Bitter Hate on the part of the Poor against 
the Rich; Decay of the Home-Life and of 
Home Government and Education of the 
Young ; Degeneracy of the Moral Tone of the 
Secular Press ; Wide-Spread Dissemination of 
Infidel and Corrupting Literature ; Low Views 
of the Sanctity of the Marriage Relation and 
an alarming Increase of Divorces; Political 
Corruption and Prostitution of Political Parties 
at the feet of saloonists and hoodlums, beg- 
ging for their suffrage; Infidelity scoffing at 
Christianity; and Atheism, calling itself Ag- 
nosticism, hooting God out of His Universe; 
alas ! what a hideous catalogue of moral foes 
and dangers this is which is today cursing 
199 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

our land and threatening us with national 
ruin ! 

And what is the remedy for it all? How 
shall all this dreadful on-rushing tide of sin 
be stayed, and rolled back again, and our dear 
land be saved from its engulfing and damning 
power ? How ? How ? Our text gives, I be- 
lieve, the one only true answer. That answer 
is : "Lift up Christ Crucified ; Hold up Jesus ; 
Plant the Cross in the way of all these per- 
ishing multitudes." 

This, especially in our day, is what we, as 
ministers, must do. In order to reform society, 
in order to regenerate the World, in order to 
purify the Church, in order to reach and 
uplift and save souls, we must, in all our 
preaching, lift up Christ. Not ourselves, but 
Christ ; not the Church, but Christ ; not Forms 
and Ceremonies, but Christ ; Christ, as the In- 
carnation of Deity, as the Revealer of the will 
of God, as the Great Teacher of Man, as 
the high Model of faultless character and of 
holy living, as the Divine Benefactor of the 
human race ; and especially must we preach 
Christ as "lifted up," the Christ crucified, suf- 
200 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

fering, bleeding, dying on the Cross as a Di- 
vine Sacrifice for man's sins, and as man's 
ransom from eternal death; this must be the 
chief burden and theme of all our preaching. 

And this, also, will always be successful 
preaching. The pulpit that thus preaches 
Christ will always be a pulpit of power. Men 
will be arrested by it, convicted of sin by it, 
converted, sanctified, saved by it. Such a 
pulpit becomes the great regenerating and 
uplifting agency of society. It reforms and 
purifies the whole social life of the state. It 
is the salt, the life, the salvation of the world. 
It is the power of God unto salvation. 

And not only is there power in the pulpit 
that thus lifts up Christ, but there is also 
abiding freshness and attractiveness in it. It 
has in it the element of permanent and in- 
creasing popularity. This preaching of Christ 
never grows stale or old. It is always the "old, 
old story/' yet always new. 

This, then, is the one duty of the pulpit: 

namely, always and only to preach Christ and 

Him crucified. Then only will it be a pulpit 

of real, living, permanent power. And then, 

201 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

also, in the best and truest sense of the word, 
will it be an attractive pulpit, drawing men's 
souls to Christ, even as Jesus here says : "And 
I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." 
There is, however, here in our text, also, 
A lesson of Encouragement for us, as Chris- 
tians, as well as a lesson of Duty. 

Often, under a conscious sense of our per- 
sonal weakness and insufficiency, and want of 
talent, and lack of ability, we shrink even from 
the attempt to do anything for Christ, and for 
the salvation of souls. We ministers often 
feel thus; often with the Apostle exclaiming: 
"Who is sufficient for these things ?" and often 
with the Prophet crying out : "Ah, Lord God, 
I cannot speak. I am a child." Oh, how 
often this sense of weakness, of inability for 
the great work before us has almost crushed 
us. And you, also, of the laity, members of 
the Church, how often doubtless you, too, have 
been thus burdened, feeling that you could do 
nothing by which souls would be saved. But 
why, now, should any of us feel or speak 
thus ? Our ground of encouragement in Chris- 
tian work is not in ourselves, but it is in 

202 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Christ. Jesus, here in our text, reveals to us 
a secret by which we can all have power to 
win souls, by which we may all be successful 
workers for Him. He here says to us : "The 
power to awaken, draw, convert, sanctify, and 
save the souls of men is not in you, but in Me. 
I, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto 
Me ; not you, but I ; if only I be lifted up, that 
is all you have to do, I will draw men to My- 
self and to Heaven; only so I be lifted up, 
preached, consistently lived, tenderly and lov- 
ingly spoken of, rightly presented to the 
world, no matter how feeble the hand that 
lifts Me up, or how stammering the tongue 
that speaks for Me, or how broken the voice 
that sings for Me ; I, not you, by your elo- 
quence, or learning, or talent, but I, wholly 
by the divine attractive power that, as the Son 
of God, is in Me, I will draw all men unto 
Me; I will do it all; all you have to do is to 
so hold or lift Me up that sinners may see Me." 
Brethren and Friends, what a blessed secret 
that is ! What encouragement to us all, even 
to the least talented, these words of the Mas- 
ter are ! In the magnet, not in the hand that 
203 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

holds it, is the attraction. In the candle, not 
in the candlestick in which it is placed, is the 
light. In the Brazen Serpent, not in the pole 
upholding it, was the healing power. And so 
the power to win and save souls is not in us, 
but in Christ. We cannot draw them, but He 
can. We cannot melt and change their hard, 
bad hearts, but He can. And, if only He be 
indeed by us rightly lifted up, He also, as 
He here promised, most certainly will. 

Not long ago, a railroad bridge was sud- 
denly washed away. The watchman's little 
daughter was the only one, for some reason, 
who, at the moment, knew what had occurred. 
A train was soon due. She saw the danger 
and death, which, unless warned, awaited it. 
And so, taking her dead father's red signal 
flag, and going up the road, she stood aritl 
waited until the train came in sight, and then, 
raising the flag, she waved it, checked the 
train, saved it. It was only a child's hand that 
held and waved that danger signal and saved 
that onrushing train. In herself alone, with- 
out that flag, she could have done nothing. 
Planting herself before that train, her little 
204 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

body could not have stayed it. Her feeble 
voice could not have called it to a halt. The 
power was in the flag, symbol of danger, which 
her childish hand there so nobly held up. 

And so, beloved, the power to save men is 
not, I repeat, in us. The strongest of us, 
the wisest, the holiest are, in our- 
selves, but little children, unable to 
save one single soul. But the power 
is all in Christ. He saves them. And we can 
be instruments by which He will save them. 
We can show sinners the Cross. We can tell 
them of Jesus. We can be uplifters of this 
Son of God as the lost World's one only Re- 
deemer. This we all can do. This we all 
ought to do. 

Make this, then, your one grand life-work, 
my brother. Be ever, in every possible way, 
an uplifter of Christ. By your faith in Him, 
by your confession of Him, by your life for 
Him, by your worship of Him, by your labor 
and giving and sacrifice for Him, manifest 
Christ; ever remembering what He says in 
our text : "And I, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto Me." 
205 



THE STRENGTH OF YOUNG 

MEN. 

TEXT. 

"/ have written unto you young men, because ye 
are strong." — 1 John it. I4. 

One of the marked characteristics of all 
young life is Strength. There is still in it 
the unexpended force or energy of its own 
fulness and freshness of being. It y has as yet 
lost nothing of itself in conflict with the other 
forms of life outside of itself and opposed pos- 
sibly to itself. It is life, also, untouched as 
yet by the breath of decay, by the , frost of 
age, by the law of decline, by the force within 
itself of dissolution and death. It is young 
life, fresh from God, who is the Infinite Foun- 
tain of Life; and, because thus young and 
fresh from God, it is also robust, healthful, 
strong life. Because of its very newness of 
being it has in it the quality of strength. 

This is true of all vegetable life. It is true 

of all irrational animal life. It is especially 

true of all human life. Man has his fullest 

vigor, energy, force of being, in his first man- 

206 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

hood years. Not in all respects, by any means, 
has he then his best strength, but he then has 
strength, inherent strength, potential strength, 
strength as yet undisciplined, and perhaps un- 
harnessed and undirected as yet to any one 
great purpose or end in life, but, nevertheless, 
strength. 

Pre-eminently strength is the characteristic 
of every young man. He is, in many respects, 
already strong. Especially has he in himself 
the potencies of strength: possibilities of 
strength, germs of power, enlarging capacities 
of great future achievements, a latent force of 
being which, both in time and in eternity, will 
either lift him up into ever higher planes of 
Life and Light and holy Fellowship with God, 
or will sink him, like a falling star, down into 
ever deepening lower depths of moral dark- 
ness and death. 

In what respects is the young man strong? 
In what centers his strength? Samson's 
strength was in his hair. The strength of 
Hercules was in his brawny muscle and 
mighty arm. The strength of Mercury was 
in his eloquence. In what is every young 
207 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

man strong? Where lies his strength? In 
a number of things. 

There is, in connection with every young 
man, I remark, 

I. The strength of joyous hope and of 

BRIGHT EXPECTATION BY PARENTS AND FRIENDS. 

No words can well express how strong every 
young man is in his mother's love, and in his 
father's hopes and ambitions. There is no 
affection like the affection of a Parent; no 
devotion or attachment so deep, so fervent, so 
enduring, so quenchless. Time does not 
weaken it. Distance does not diminish it. 
It lives on in the parental heart as long as 
that heart continues to beat on earth; and 
when Death at last stills it here, it lives on 
forever in it in the life to come. The most 
immortal thing on earth or in heaven, next to 
the love of God Himself, is the love of father 
or mother for a child. 

Here, then, in the love of his parents, in 
their willing sacrifices for him, in their pride 
in him, in their expectations and hopes con- 
cerning him, every young man is strong. 
208 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Those hearts he has it in, his power either to 
fill with gladness or to break with sorrow; 
either to send singing and happy along life's 
pathway and make joyous even in death, or 
compel to walk life's journey in tears, and 
go, at last, in sadness to their graves, exclaim- 
ing as did David over Absalom : "O my son, 
my son, would God I had died for thee !" It is 
the strength of Love : the Love of a father, 
the holy deathless Love of a mother; placing 
itself in the power of the child, and saying: 
"Love makes me your, prisoner ; my life is in 
your determining; yours is the voice which 
decides for me either my happiness or my 
misery ; my joy or my sorrow." Blessed is the 
young man who recognizes this strength over 
Parental Destiny which Parental Love thus 
gives him, and who nobly resolves never to 
use that strength in wounding and breaking 
a father's or a mother's heart, but to so ex- 
pend it as ever to make life to them an un- 
broken psalm of praise, and cause them, even 
down to its close, and even through all eter- 
nity, to bless God for the gift to them of such 
a Son. 

209 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

But every young man is strong in himself. 
In his own being, as well as in the love for 
him of others, he is power. There is, I there- 
fore yet remark : 

II. The strength of splendid endow- 
ments AND MAGNIFICENT POSSIBILITIES IN 
EVERY YOUNG MAN. 

What fine endowments God has given in a 
fully and symmetrically developed young man ! 
What lofty gifts such a young man possesses ! 

He possesses physical strength; and that is 
a blessed gift. A strong physique is a choice 
possession. A clean, pure, healthy, and well 
developed body is something of great value, 
worthy to be sought after. It is the work- 
manship of God. It is the temple of the soul. 
It is the instrument by which the spirit puts 
forth its energies and achieves its purposes. 
Honor, therefore, as a young man, your body. 
By fresh air, the use of simple and nutritious 
food, manly exercise, an abundance of sleep, 
abstinence from all harmful vices, develop it 
into best possible perfection. By athletic 
games and steady and wise gymnastic practice 
210 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

secure for yourself, as you can thus do, a 
strong physical manhood. 

But intellectual strength is also an endow- 
ment of the ideal young man. Athanasius 
was but a young man when, in the Great Coun- 
cil of Nice, he stood forth as the able and elo- 
quent defender of the Deity of Christ. John 
Calvin was but, a young man when he wrote 
his immortal "Theological Institutes," a work 
which, however men may differ in their re- 
spective views of its doctrines, must be con- 
fessed to be one of the most masterly pro- 
ductions that has ever been penned. Luther, 
also, was but a young man, only thirty-four, 
when, by nailing up his ninety-five theses, he 
struck his first great open blow against the 
errors of Rome. 

And so in the history of the World, as well 
as of the Church, young men have generally 
been the Chief and Prominent Actors. 

Washington was not yet thirty-three when 
he took command of the Continental Army. 
Alexander Hamilton was only thirty-three 
when he became Federal Treasurer, and, as 
Webster said, "smote the corpse of public 

211 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

credit, and it rose upon its feet." John Jay 
was only thirty-one when he took his seat as 
President of the First Continental Congress. 
James Madison was only thirty-six when he 
wrote his famous papers in the "Federalist." 
William H. Seward was already a profound 
thinker, philosopher, lawyer, and was already 
in the State Senate at thirty-two. Alexander 
had already conquered the world at thirty- 
three. Cicero was famous as an orator already 
at twenty-six. Napoleon was already Emper- 
or before he was thirty-four. Pitt was Prime 
Minister before he was thirty-four. 

And so in multitudes of other cases. In 
both Church and State, all along in the World's 
History, it is young men who have, in large 
measure, been the great leaders of thought, 
and of the great historic activities of the hu- 
man race, and who have moulded and deter- 
mined the character and destiny both of their 
own age and of the ages following. They 
were then already, as young men, strong, 
either as a blessing or as a curse both to them- 
selves and to thousands and even millions of 
others. Intellectual power, as well as physical, 
212 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

generally decays with advancing years. Men 
of great intellectual strength, like John Quincy 
Adams, like Bismarck, like Gladstone, at sev- 
enty and eighty years of age, are, in this re- 
spect, exceptional. The rule is that age brings 
with it enfeebled mental force. The Duke of 
Marlborough, for example, one of the greatest 
of the World's soldiers, is reported, in his last 
years, to have lost all memory of his own 
great exploits, and when, for his entertain- 
ment, the history of them was read to him, 
rising up he would enthusiastically ask : "Who 
commanded?" And so, also, Sir Isaac New- 
ton, whose strength of intellect in his full 
manhood years was unequaled, in his last 
years was unable to understand the simplest 
principles of the great problems which he had 
once solved with greatest ease. And thus 
generally. In old age there is the waning of 
intellectual power, the abating of the mental 
strength of earlier years. ■ 

But young men are y strong also in Spirit : in 

Heart and Hope, in Enthusiasm, in Self-Con- 

fidence and heroic Daring. The blood ever 

courses warm and swiftly through a young 

213 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

man's veins, inciting him to difficult under- 
takings, and assuring him of success in it 
whatever may oppose. Not so with old men. 
They, on the contrary, taught by experience, 
remembering many past disappointments and 
surrounded by the wrecks of many shattered 
idols and blasted hopes, are timid and cau- 
tious, have lost spirit, are reluctant to make 
ventures. They lack the faith and, hope of 
success which they once had, and which are al- 
ways necessary in order to spur one on to brave 
and great endeavors. It is the young man 
who possesses these, who will dare anything, 
who, in his, warm enthusiasm and assurance 
of success, will attempt the achievement of 
even things seemingly impossible, and who, 
because thus hopeful and daring, is strong, 
and accomplishes what he attempts, "I write 
unto you, young men, because ye are strong." 
Such, now, hastily, outlined, are the endow- 
ments of young men, and in these endowments 
is their strength. And hence, also their Pos- 
sibilities. Clothed with such power, having 
such Strength, they are capable of great 
things. They are invested with magnificent 
214 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Possibilities: possibilities of usefulness, of 
honor, of happiness, of blessing, and possibil- 
ities also of fearful self-degradation, of shame, 
of harm to society, or injury to the Church and 
to the Cause of Christ, of moral ruin both to 
themselves and to others both in time and in 
eternity. 

And right there centers the importance of 
every young man. It is that which awakens 
such deep interest in him on the part of all 
thoughtful and good people older than him- 
self. Not so much because of what he yet is, 
but because of what he may, and necessarily 
will, either for evil or for good, become ; par- 
ents, teachers, pastors, the State, the school, 
the u Church all fix upon him their anxious 
thought and seek to guide him into those right 
pathways both of character and life which 
will make him a blessing to himself and to all 
with whom he has to do. In him is tremen- 
dous latent strength, a pent-up energy and. 
force which is mighty. How shall that strength 
be expended? What moral direction in life 
shall that energy take? To what uses shall 
that force be applied? On yonder railway 
215 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

track stands a locomotive. The fire is burn- 
ing in its furnace. Its water is heated into 
steam. Power has been generated. Its every 
part is trembling with the mighty force which 
throbs within it. It has great possibilities 
within it. It may sweep on in safety to their 
distant homes the hundreds and thousands of 
passengers filling the train attached to it, or 
it may dash both itself and them over the preci- 
pice into ruin and death. Its power gives it 
mighty possibilities; but they are possibilities 
of death as well as of life. And so with every 
young man. He has power. He is strong. 
And because of his strength he has vast, 
weighty, far-reaching, important possibilities 
before him. Something will come from him. 
His life will tell in some direction. That 
power in him will expend itself in some way. 
The anxious question is : Where, how, in 
what way ? For evil or for good ? As a bane 
or as a blessing? For the Church or against 
her? For the benefit of Society or for its 
curse? For his own salvation in eternity, 
or for his eternal destruction? That is the 
question. 

216 



Joy in the Divine Government. 
And this leads me to remark : 
III. That to every young man there is, 

ESPECIALLY IN THIS DAY, THE STRENGTH OF 
MIGHTY PERILS AND MORAL DANGERS. 

Satan is working hard to gain young men. 
He, too, knows that they are strong. He sees 
the power there is in them, and he well knows 
that if he can gain them they will do hin^good 
service. And hence all his subtle, captivating, 
varied, persistent, mighty efforts to win them. 
What agents and agencies thus to gain them 
he has at work ! What allurements and temp- 
tations ! What deceptions and wiles ! What 
appeals to taste, to imagination, to their love 
of the beautiful, to their hope of gain, to their 
pleasure in society, to their appetite and pas- 
sion and lust! What an undermining of 
moral principles and of Christian faith. What 
assaults of doubt and scepticism. What temp- 
tations to aimlessness in life, to idleness, to 
extravagance, to untruthfulness, to dishonesty, 
to profanity, to intemperance, to lewdness, to 
vice of every kind! What perils, on every 
hand, from bad literature, bad company, bad 
217 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

practices, bad places : from the liquor saloon, 
from the house of the strange woman, from 
the gaming table: from all these, and from 
many other places, what moral perils face and 
lure on to ruin our young men ! 

In the midst of such dangers a young man 
well needs to be strong. His foes also are 
strong. Like a very giant he needs to stand 
up in his integrity against them and heroically 
resist them. He dare not dally with them. 
He must not parley with them a moment. He 
must not yield to tljem an inch. His strength, 
and God's strength in him, must be uncom- 
promisingly and unyieldingly set against them 
or he will go down before them. Many young 
men have, alas! thus yielded to temptation, 
have dallied with these enemies of their souls, 
have listened to the siren songs of sin, and 
have gone down. You can see them every- 
where. Sad sight, indeed! A ruined young 
man ! Ruined already in the morning of his 
life. The captive of Satan, the bondservant 
of vicious habits, manhood degraded, purity 
gone, character wrecked, reputation lost, awak- 
ened hopes blasted, possibilities of honor and 
218 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

happiness and usefulness all thrown away, the 
man in body and soul a wreck, life here and 
hereafter lost. I know of no sadder sight! 
Even angels might well weep over it. And 
its deepest sadness comes from the fact, of its 
commonness. It is such a frequent sight : We 
see it so often, and everywhere. Our land is 
full of young men who are thus going down 
before these moral perils which assail them. 
And many of them, alas ! come from our Chris- 
tian homes, and from the altars of our Chris- 
tian Churches, and from our Christian Col- 
leges, and go< down before these forces of evil 
into ruin r even from the very clasp and hold 
upon them of our best Christian love. 

Young men, you to whom I speak this even- 
ing, I beg you to recognize in their true char- 
acter these perils to which you are exposed. 
Know these enemies who are thus seeking to 
rob you of your virtue, your manhood, your 
piety, your purity, your happiness, your life, 
and set yourself against them with all the 
might of your being. "Be not overcome of 
evil." But stand. Stand for your life, your 
life here, your eternal life, for he who surren- 
219 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ders to sin, he who breaks faith with God, he 
who is disloyal to Conscience and Truth and 
Christ, loses both. 

But I advance to another thought. Has the 
young man, arrayed against him and seeking 
his destruction, the Strength of Mighty Perils 
and Moral Dangers, then has he, I now remark, 

IV. The strength of mighty helpers 

AND STRONG MORAL ALLIES ARRAYED FOR HIM. 
"THE REFORMATION AS THE WORK OF god/' 

I can but enumerate these helpers and allies 
which stand, like guardian angels, around 
every young man in the moral conflict of life. 
Their number is large; their power to help 
him, if he will avail himself of it, is great; 
so that we may say encouragingly to every 
young man, assailed by these moral foes which 
are seeking his ruin, as Elisha said to his 
affrighted servant: "Fear not: for they that 
be with us are more than they that be with 
them." 

The sweet memories of childhood are with 
them. The remembrance of the Old Home 
Life : of a father's prayers, of a mother's love, 
220 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

of the family altar, of the old family Bible, of 
the Scripture lessons taught, of the moral prin- 
ciples inculcated, of the religious habits once 
practiced, of the worship of God once enjoyed : 
the remembrance of all these still lingers in 
the young man's soul, and, in temptation, helps 
him to be strong. The voice of Conscience is 
with him, and, in the midst of life's moral 
conflicts, rings out its words of warning and 
bids him bravely stand. His Reason and sober 
Judgment are with him and tell him not to 
allow his own undoing. His sense of self-re- 
spect is with him and pleads with him to scorn 
what .would cost him his own self-degradation. 
His early habits of Christian living are with 
him and hold him to a continuance in well 
doing. ,His training and education are with 
him : the many high moral lessons of truthful- 
ness and honesty and purity and righteousness 
and morality and godliness impressed upon 
him by parents and pastors and teachers, the 
many influences for good brought by them to 
bear upon him and to mould his character : 
all these still are with him. The interest in 
him of multitudes of loving friends, concerned 

221 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

for his welfare, desirous for his success, re- 
joicing in his unsullied and unstained young 
manhood, pained if he should fall, following 
him with their friendship, giving him their 
confidence and love : all these, also, are with 
him. His own interest in himself, or consid- 
eration of his own best welfare: regard for 
his health, for his reputation, for the esteem 
of his fellow 7 men, for his prosperity in busi- 
ness or trade, for his good standing in society, 
for his accumulation of wealth, for his pro- 
motion to places of honor and power and trust 
in the State or in the Church, for his fame 
both while living and when once removed 
by death, for his happiness here and his sal- 
vation hereafter : regard for his own best in- 
terests in all these respects is ever, if he is 
thoughtful of himself as he ought to be, with 
him inciting him to the right and checking 
and restraining him from the wrong. The 
Institutions of our holy Christian Religion are 
also with him: the Church, the Ministry, the 
Preached Word, the Sacraments, the Social 
Fellowship of Christian People, the Bible, the 
Christian Press, the Lord's Day, the Christian 

222 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Home, the Christian College or School: all 
these are helps and allies to the Young Man 
to strengthen his moral character, to confirm 
him in sound moral principle, to develop him 
in strong and noble Christian Manhood. And, 
finally, best of all God is with him : with him 
by His Providence to guard and guide him; 
with him by His Spirit to sanctify, comfort 
and strengthen him ; with him by His Church 
to instruct, nourish, keep him; with him by 
His Son to redeem, pardon, bless and save him. 
All these are allies of the young man in his 
warfare with his spiritual foes, in his resis- 
tance of temptation, in his battles against sin. 
He does not stand alone. A great host of 
spiritual warriors stand around him and fight 
for him. The combined power of all that is 
good both upon earth and in heaven is arrayed 
in his behalf. All the saintly in the Church 
below, all the redeemed in the Church above, 
all the sympathy of Christ who died for him, 
all the omnipotence and pity and love of God 
his Father who made and keeps him, all are 
on his side and are supporting and sustaining 
him. 

223 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

With such allies in the fight is not the 
Christian Young Man strong? Was not the 
Apostle right in his estimate of such when he 
wrote : "I write unto you young men because 
ye are strong" : strong in the strength of God,, 
strong in the power of the Holy Ghost, strong 
in a moral might given from above and which 
makes them conquerors and more than con- 
querors through Him who loved them. But 
only such are strong. Only the young man 
who thus is strong in God's strength, is really 
strong, is strong enough to stand in the moral 
battle which he must wage. His own strength, 
unhelped by God's strength, is weakness. His 
will power, his best resolutions, his firmest pur- 
poses, will all prove unable to resist the shock 
of the conflict. Contending alone and in his 
own strength he will go down before his foes 
as the ship goes down before the storm. Hun- 
dreds and thousands, strong as any, have thus 
gone down. Alexander, proudly called "the 
Great," and who was also great as men es- 
teem greatness, great in his exploits, in his suc- 
cess, in his achievements, in his intellect and 
will, in his mastery over men, in his military 
224 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

genius, who with his mighty armies conquered 
the world, whom neither rapid rivers, nor 
rugged mountains, nor opposing nations, nor 
countless enemies, could discourage nor deter 
from his purpose nor overcome, this man, so 
great, who having conquered the world sighed 
for yet other worlds to conquer, in his own 
strength was yet unable to conquer himself 
and went down while yet a young man, the 
slave of his own passions, the helpless victim 
of his own bad habits. And thus many young 
men, today, strong in their own fancied 
strength, go down as moral wrecks into the 
whirlpool of destruction. I wish I could make 
every young man, who reads this, feel deeply 
this truth, namely, that he is strong morally 
only as God, by His grace, makes him strong. 
Divine strength is alone real strength; and is 
alone sufficient strength. As young men have 
that are they strong, and then only are they 
strong. Only when they have God as their 
Friend, and Christ as their Helper, and the 
Holy Ghost as Heart-guest, and the Church as 
their Spiritual Home, and the People of God 
as their Companions, and the Bible as their 
225 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Pilot and Compass, only then will they safely 
make the voyage of life here and enter, at last, 
in triumph "the harbor of eternal life on the 
other shore." 

"I can be my own pilot," was recently the 
haughty answer of a young sea captain, when 
admonished that the coast was dangerous and 
that he should signal for a Pilot: "I can be 
my own pilot." He was his own Pilot. But 
the vessel struck the rock, and the next morn- 
ing his dead body, and fragments of his queen- 
ly ship, and remnants of his costly freight 
were scattered in mockery, as it were, all along 
the surfy shore of the angry sea. He was his 
own Pilot. But there was his fatal mistake. 
It gratified, for a moment, his vanity, but, in 
the end, it cost him his life. Oh, young men, 
repeat not his folly. Seek not to be your own 
Pilots over the dangerous Sea of Life. It 
will cost you your soul. Take Christ as your 
Pilot. In prayer throw out, this moment, a 
signal of distress. Send a message to Heaven 
for help. Telegraph to the skies for a Pilot. 

Young men, this is the strength you need. 
There are burdens to be borne through life, 
226 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

our own and others' ; there are enemies to over- 
come, passions to subdue, vices to uproot, vir- 
tues to implant, services to execute, work to 
do — and the natural man, with all his won- 
derful capacities and capabilities, does not pos- 
sess the strength or power of endurance for 
such undertakings. Nevertheless, the old 
apostle in Patmos furnishes the secret: "Ye 
are strong, and the Word of God Abideth in 
you" — the Word of God; the written Word, 
bearing within itself Christ the Incarnate 
Word, who takes up His abode within us. In 
order, then, to possess strength, Christ must 
thus enter the heart and find lodgment within. 
There must be a willing surrender of the cita- 
del of Man's soul to King Emanuel. Give 
Jesus, then, a thrice blessed welcome. Enter- 
tain this Divine Guest. He will become your 
Captain, and will lead you forth to victory. 

When Robert Bruce lay dying he gave 
charge to the black Douglas to bury his heart 
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The 
brave general, in obedience to the dying wishes 
of his king, carried in a silver casket hanging 
from his neck the embalmed heart of Bruce, 
227 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

and with a few Scottish cavaliers set out for 
the Holy Land. They met with many impedi- 
ments on their onward march, the Moors in 
Spain being especially antagonistic. On one 
occasion when the little band of Scotchmen be- 
held the numbers of the enemy they became 
demoralized and would have fled from the foe ; 
but Douglas, taking from his bosom the pre- 
cious relic, threw it at the enemy, and grasping 
his sword with renewed energy cried to the 
little band, "Scotchmen fight for the heart of 
Bruce I" ,The word thrilled his brave follow- 
ers, who charged upon the Moors and drove 
them from the field, knowing that the heart 
which ever throbbed with affection for them 
was now in danger of being trampled under 
foot. Though inanimate that heart, it recalled 
heroic deeds of the great Bruce which filled 
them with frenzy, inflamed them with renewed 
zeal until strengthened they went forth to vic- 
tory. Soldiers of Christ, your inspiration is 
far higher, nobler, and more effective. For 
not the embalmed heart of our glorious Leader 
have we in the field, but His living presence. 
Hear Him declare, "Lo, I am with you alway !" 
228 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Let that ringing word rally all around His 
banner, and giving the enemy no quarter, en- 
tering into no compromise with the foe, "fight 
the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal 
life," and win for yourselves the blessed 
plaudit, "I have written unto you, young men, 
because ye are strong, and the Word of God 
abideth in you, and ye have overcome the 
w r icked one." "Let the Word of Christ dwell 
in you richly in all wisdom, speaking to your- 
selves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, 
singing and making melody in your hearts to 
the Lord," for "the joy of the Lord is your 
strength." 

Unsaved, ungodly, Christless young man, 
one word more to you. Remember that "when 
we were yet without strength Christ died for 
the ungodly." But God raised Him from the 
dead, and through Him now is preached unto 
you forgiveness of sins, and everlasting life. 
Yield your life to Him who is your best Friend, 
then shall you be strong in battling for the 
Lord. 



229 



THE RESURRECTION 
BODY. 

TEXT. 

"But some man zvill say, How are the dead raised 
up? and zvith what body do lliey come?" — 1 Corin- 
thians xv. 35. 

Our text is a question. It is not necessarily 
the question of a Sceptic or doubter. It may 
be the question of honest search after light 
and after clearer understanding of the doc- 
trine in connection with which the question is 
asked. 

The Apostle, by a most masterly argument, 
had established the great truth of the Resur- 
rection of the Body. The logic he employs 
in his argument is convincing; the conclusion 
is irresistible, and the fact is proven beyond 
room for rational doubt. The dead shall all 
again be restored to life, and shall all again 
rise. There will be a Resurrection of the 
Bodies of the dead. 

But, whilst thus convinced, by irresistible 

argument, of the fact that the dead shall again 

rise, the manner of their resurrection is still 
230 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

an unsettled question. How will they be raised 
up? With what kind of bodies will they, in 
the Resurrection Morning, come forth? Will 
the body that rises from the grave be the same 
body that was laid in the grave? In what 
respects will our present bodies and our future, 
or resurrection, bodies be alike? In what re- 
spects will they differ? If the same, in what 
will consist their identity? What will be the 
character of our future or resurrection body 
contrasted with the character of our present 
body? What precisely will be the relation of 
the one to the other? Admitting the fact 
of the resurrection of the dead, how will they 
arise ? "But some man will say, How are the 
dead raised up? and with what kind of body 
do they come?" 

We would first maintain that the 

SAINTED DEAD, IN THE MORNING OF THE RES- 
URRECTION, WILL NOT COME IN A BODY 
WHICH IS LITERALLY AND ABSOLUTELY, IN ALL 
ITS MATERIAL PARTICLES. PRECISELY THE SAME 
AS THAT WHICH IN BURIAL WAS LAID AWAY 
IN THE GRAVE. 

231 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

It is evidently erroneous to hold, as some 
do, that the future or resurrection body shall 
be composed of precisely the same matter, and 
in precisely the same quantities and same pro- 
portions, as compose the Christian's present 
body. Such a literal or material theory of the 
Resurrection is, I say, evidently erroneous and 
untenable. The resurrection body, in its ma- 
terial composition, will, most evidently, not be 
precisely the same as the present body, that 
is, the same matter exactly, and no other. For, 
in opposition to such a theory as this, the Scrip- 
tures expressly declare that "flesh and blood" 
shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. Be- 
sides, Science, also, well asks : "How can 
possibly the body ever be thus literally raised 
us?" It tells us that in a man's life-time the 
matter composing his body is so constantly 
changing that every seven years he has a new 
body; and, hence, pointing to a man who has 
lived to be seventy years old, it asks, with a 
sneer, whether the matter that composed this 
or that one of the ten bodies which were each 
successively here his, will there and then con- 
stitute his resurrection body ? Or, it points us 
232 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

to bodies that have been consumed by fire, and 
their ashes scattered by the winds of heaven 
over the face of the earth ; and to others that 
have been eaten by wild beasts and, as food, 
have helped to constitute their bodies, or been 
eaten by cannibals and have been assimilated 
and entered into the composition of other hu- 
man bodies ; and to still others that have been 
dissolved on battle fields and enriched the soil, 
and been absorbed by the roots of trees and 
grasses and harvests of corn and wheat, and 
have been changed into fruit or grain, which 
were eaten by man or beast, and thus passes 
into other animal systems and, as muscle or 
bone or blood, become part again of some 
other living organization ; science, I say, hon- 
est, thoughtful inquiry upon this subject, points 
to all these facts involving considerations con- 
cerning the matter which now composes our 
bodies and it well asks : How can, in view of 
these facts, there ever be such a thing as a 
Resurrection of the very same body which is 
laid in the grave? How can just precisely the 
matter which now constitutes my body also 
constitute my resurrection body, when that 
233 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

matter before it composed my body was pos- 
sibly part of some other human body, and af- 
ter I have laid it aside, and it is dissolved into 
air and gases and water and soil, and, changed 
into some other form, it may enter into the 
structure of a dozen or a hundred other hu- 
man bodies? 

And those are hard questions to answer. You 
may, I know, answer them by simply saying to 
the Objector : "With God all things are pos- 
sible. He could create the body and He also 
can re-create it. He can re-collect the scat- 
tered particles, and can re-organize them, and 
can re-construct the body again of the same 
particles precisely of which it is now composed. 
Let them be where they will, at His bidding 
they can all be summoned back again, and 
can be made to compose the same form exactly 
which they once composed when the body was 
laid in the grave." "Yes," I answer, "that is, 
I suppose, all true. God has all power." But 
in this case it is not a question of mere Divine 
Power: it is a question simply of fact. God 
can do all that He wills to do, and all that 
He has said He will do. And, hence, if God 
234 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

anywhere in His word had said that in the 
Morning of the Resurrection He would raise 
up from the grave the same body precisely 
which had been laid away in the grave, that 
is composed of the very same particles which 
now compose it, He also could do it, and most 
surely would also do it. And then, if thus 
declared in the word of God, no matter how 
many objections might by human science or 
philosophy be made to it, or how many diffi- 
culties and seeming impossibilities might be 
advanced against it, I would still most firmly 
believe it, and we all would. For God's word 
is always truth. 

But happily God's Word makes no such tax 
upon our faith as all that. God's Word no- 
where teaches that our Resurrection Bodies 
will thus be composed of the same precise mat- 
ter which now composes our bodies, or which 
will compose them when at our death they are 
laid away in the grave. Paul, indeed, in an- 
swer to this question of our text, "With what 
body do they come?" most positively asserts 
just the reverse. To the Objector, who asks 
the question, and who assumes that if the 
235 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

dead, as Paul taught, really do again rise, 
then they must also rise in the very same ma- 
terially composed bodies which they here in- 
habited, and which were here buried, says: 
"Thou fool ! That which thou sowest is not 
quickened except it die; and that which thou 
sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall 
be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat or 
of some other grain/' That is : "There is a 
difference between the seed sown and the liv- 
ing plant that springs from that seed. You 
drop into the earth, he means, a grain, and 
there comes up, not a grain, but a green, liv- 
ing stalk or tree; and whilst the stalk or tree 
has, indeed, sprung from the grain which you 
planted or sowed, there is yet not a particle 
of that grain now in the stalk or tree. The 
matter in the stalk or tree is all matter which, 
as a living organism, it has, through its roots 
and leaves, or lungs, absorbed and assimilated 
into its own being from the soil and air and 
water around it; and the seed from which it 
sprung was simply the germ or source of its 
life. The seed sown had in itself a hidden and 
indestructible life-force, capable of assimi- 
236 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

lating new matter and of clothing itself 
with a new and more beautiful vegetable body 
— that is, it dissolved and died, and in its dis- 
solution and death, or rather by its dissolu- 
tion and death, this life-force was set at lib- 
erty, and sprung into activity, and ushered 
into being a new and higher form of life. 

"And so," is the Apostle's meaning, "it will 
also be with the Resurrection Body. It will 
not be the bare grain merely of the body that 
was sown or buried that will come up, but it 
will be the new and higher organism of a glo* 
rified body. It will be a body sprung from the 
old, yet not the old; a body the same in its 
identity, yet not the same in its composition, or 
in its component material quality." 

This, then, is now the first answer to the 
question of our text: "With what body do 
they come?" namely, They come, or they will 
arise, not in bodies composed of precisely the 
same matter, and in the same organism, as now 
constitute or characterize our present bodies, 
or as compose the body when, at the close of 
our earth-life, it is laid in its last sleep in the 
grave. But, 

237 



Joy in the Divine Government. 
II. Whilst the resurrection body of 

THE SAINTS WILL THUS NOT BE, LITERALLY 
AND MATERIALLY, JUST PRECISELY THE SAME 
AS THEIR PRESENT BODY, THERE WILL STILL 
BE SUCH AN ORGANIC AND VITAL CONNECTION 
BETWEEN THE TWO THAT THE FUTURE OR RES- 
URRECTION BODY WILL RETAIN AND PER- 
PETUATE THE IDENTITY OF THE PRESENT BODY. 

This the Apostle here clearly teaches by his 
figure of the seed and that which springs from 
the seed. The new stalk is not, it is true, in 
substance the old seed ; and yet there is, as all 
can see, a vital connection between the stalk 
and the seed. It is the same species. It pro- 
duces again the same kind of seed, and not 
another kind. The one owes its being to the 
other, and is really the perpetuation of the 
same life that was in the other; so that how- 
ever unlike in form and appearance the seed 
and the stalk that grows from it may be, there 
is still "identity/' identity of species and or- 
der, identity of inward being and onward flow 
of life. 

And just so there exists "identity" between 
238 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

the Resurrection Body and the present body 
that is laid in the grave. Our present body 
is the "grain." The Resurrection body is the 
"stalk" that by divine power is made to grow 
up out of this grain. The grain dies, but 
there is in that dying grain an invisible and 
an indestructible germ of life or of life-force, 
which in the Morning of the Resurrection, at 
God's bidding, will assume to itself new form 
— that is, the form of its future or resurrec- 
tion body, just as the seed, in dying, gives 
up its old form of a seed and develops into 
the new form of a plant, and then, in that new 
form, it will perpetuate the life which it lived 
here, in its present form. Thus is there con- 
nection, and thus also is there living and un- 
broken identity between our present and our 
future bodies. They are different, yet they 
are identical; different in appearance, in per- 
fection, in glory, yet identical as the unbroken 
onward flow of the same individual existence 
or personality. "There is one glory of the 
sun, another glory of the moon, and another 
glory of the stars, for one star differeth from 
another star in glory;" "and so," the Apostle 
239 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

means to say, "there can and will be a great 
difference not simply between Resurrection 
bodies in general, but also in each individual 
case, between the old body and the new, and 
yet their identity remains. "So," is his lan- 
guage, "is the Resurrection of the dead." 

Besides, do we not find analogies of this very 
thing, of this preservation, I mean, of identity 
amid change and transformation in the insect 
and animal creation all around us? Look at 
the moth, the caterpillar, the locust. In the 
case of each, when a transition from one mode 
of life to another is to take place, the germs or 
the embryo organism of the future or coming 
being are wrapped up in the organization of 
the present being, so that whilst in the transi- 
tion something of the old is left behind, and 
much is gained in the new, yet the identity of 
the being remains unbroken through every 
stage of the transformation. 

And so with us. The germ of our future 
Resurrection body is, in some mysterious way 
wrapped up and hid away in our present body, 
as the body of the oak is hid away in the acorn, 
or the body of the butterfly is hid away in the 
240 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

caterpillar, or the body of the stalk is hid 
away in the seed or grain, or the beauty and 
fragrance of the flower is hid away in the 
root or bulb. The one gives being to the 
other. The life in the one, after sleeping in 
the grave, awakes and perpetuates itself in 
the other. 

But the question may here be asked: If 
the Resurrection body is so different from the 
present body, if it only comes up from the 
present body and yet is not fully the present 
body itself, how, then, will we ourselves, or 
how will others, be able to recognize the Res- 
urrection body as being, indeed, the same 
body that we here inhabited? How will we 
assuredly know and feel that the body into 
which my soul shall then enter, is, indeed, 
my old body? Will it not possibly be so en- 
tirely different that it will virtually be to me 
an entirely new and strange body? 

To this question I answer: No. How the 
consciousness of bodily identity will be se- 
cured, I do not know. But my body then will 
most clearly be seen to be the same body 
which is my body now. Of this God's Word 
241 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

assures me. Paul, here in the context, says : 
"God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, 
and to every seed his own body." The im- 
plied argument of which is that in some sense 
the same body which we had before we shall 
have then. To each one will be given "his 
own body." There will be identity. It will 
be his own body. 

And hence, also, our Saviour, after His Res- 
urrection, appeared to the disciples in a 
"form" or "body" which, whilst glorified and 
greatly changed, yet presented so fully the 
same outward appearance as that in which 
He had dwelt among them before His death 
that they were enabled to recognize Him, and 
to be assured that it was really He with whom 
they had before, as Master and disciples, been 
associated. 

Our Resurrection body then, whatever it 
may in itself exactly be, and however differ- 
ent from and superior to our present body it 
undoubtedly then will be, will yet in some 
way be identical with our present body, and 
will so far retain the appearance and individ- 
uality of our present body that in that future 
242 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Resurrection body we will easily be recog- 
nized by those who knew us, and will be 
known as the same distinct personalities 
which we are now known to be in our present 
body. 

But, if now we inquire yet more closely into 
the exact Character of the Resurrection body 
and seek to give, if possible, a still more defin- 
ite answer to the question of the text: With 
what body do they come? then we have only 
to notice yet more carefully : 

III. The apostolic description here in 

THE CONTEXT OF WHAT OUR RESURRECTION 
BODY SHALL BE. 

Two things concerning it he states very 
emphatically. He tells us : 

(a.) That it will be such a body as it may 
please God in the Resurrection to give us. 
"God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him." 

Nowhere around us can we discover such 
a thing as naked life. It is always incorporate 
or embodied life. And He who has thus given 
body to life is God. The form of the human 
body for the habitation of the human life, the 
243 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

form of irrational animals for mere animal 
life, and of insects for insect life, and of plants 
for plant life, all these are His materialized 
conceptions or creations. To each of these 
special kinds of life He has given a body as 
it hath pleased Him, and as the special life 
in each required. And so, also, in the Resur- 
rection, the Apostle assures us, God will give 
to each of us a Resurrection body as will 
please Him — that is ; such a body as He in His 
infinite wisdom and benevolence will choose 
for us as suited to the new, celestial and 
glorious heavenly life to which we shall then 
be exalted. "God giveth it a body as it hath 
pleased Him." A body so beautiful, so radi- 
ant, so perfect, so capable, so glorious, so im- 
mortal, and so adapted to be the home of the 
redeemed immortal soul, that it will please 
Him, and that He can again, as at first, in 
Eden, in strictest truth, pronounce it "good." 

But in answer to the question : "With what 
body do they come?" the Apostle presents 
also, 

(b.) Some points of contrast between the 
Resurrection bodies which we shall then have 
244 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

and our present bodies, and he shows that our 
Resurrection bodies will be infinitely superior 
in every possible respect to our present bodies. 
Our present body, he notices first, "is sown 
in corruption ;" but our future body, he de- 
clares, "shall be raised in incorruption. ,, 
"Sown in corruption/' How true! The 
"Corruption" begins with the very beginning 
of our bodily life. Paul says, "I die daily." 
What toil, what care, what sickness, what suf- 
fering, what infirmities, whaft decay, what 
dissolution finally in the tomb, make up the 
experience here of the body! But how dif- 
ferent it will be with the Resurrection body! 
The Apostle says: "It shall be raised in in- 
corruption." Every sign or tendency to im- 
perfection will then be forever gone. No pain, 
no sickness, no death. Elasticity in every 
limb, health on every cheek, joy in every eye. 

"No chilling winds, nor poisonous breath, 

Can reach that happy shore ; 
Sickness, and sorrow, pain and death, 

Are felt and feared no more." 

Blessed Hope ! Death, with all its sad and 
painful preliminaries, shall then be known no 
245 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

more. Glorified the body shall then stand 
forth in the glow and bloom and beauty of 
eternal youth. We shall all then, as disci- 
ples of Christ, be changed. This corruptible 
will then put on incorruption ; and this mortal, 
or this present death-tendency in us, will then 
put on immortality. "So when this corrupti- 
ble shall have put on incorruption, and this 
mortal shall have put on immortality, then 
shall be brought to pass the saying that is 
written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O 
Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where 
is thy victory?" 

Again, however, in his exhibit of this con- 
trast between our present and future bodies, 
the Apostle says, concerning the present body : 
"It is sown in dishonor/' but concerning the 
future body, "it is raised in glory." It goes 
down to the grave dishonored : dishonored by 
the touch and blight of sin ; dishonored by 
all the destroying consequences of sin ; a prey 
to the spoiler Death. But "it shall be raised 
in glory." "Jesus shall change our vile body 
that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious 
body." 

246 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

What a contrast! What a comfort! All 
the imperfections and blemishes and defects 
of the present body gone. All the curse of 
the fall which has fallen on the body eternally 
lifted. And, instead of all these, there will 
then in our bodies be the beauty, the faultless- 
ness, the perfection, the symmetry, the sun- 
like radiance and effulgence, the glory even 
of the body of the Saviour Himself as it once 
appeared on "the Mount of Transfiguration," 
or as it even now appears seated upon the 
Throne of Heavenly Royalty. "For we shall 
be like Him." 

But more. The Apostle also further says, 
concerning our present body, "It is sown in 
weakness;" but concerning the future body 
he says, "it is raised in power." It goes down 
steadily already in weakness, as the years go 
by, under the burdens and sicknesses and 
struggles of life; and goes down, at last, in 
utter weakness into the grave, conquered by 
death. But how gloriously it is raised. "It 
is raised," says the Apostle, "in power:" in 
power over Death ; in power over sin ; in pow- 
er over all the Christian's Spiritual Foes; in 
247 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

power over all Physical Weariness; in power 
to pass on errands of God from world to 
world; in power without cessation to live, 
and labor, and love, and worship forever 
around the throne of God. 

But, once more, concerning our present body 
he says : "It is sown a natural body" — -that is, 
an animal, an earthly body, adapted to ma- 
terial surroundings, itself material, and need- 
ing material food to sustain it; but it shall, 
he declares, "be raised a spiritual body" — that 
is, a body which will consist of the most re- 
fined and purified substance; "matter," but 
transparent-etherealized matter; "matter," but 
matter spiritualized in its character; "matter," 
but matter approaching the nature of spirit; 
"matter," but matter sublimated and elevated 
above the laws and conditions which now 
govern our material bodies. "It is raised a 
spiritual body:" a body, but a body of spirit 
or a body resembling spirit. Amazing para- 
dox! I speak, I know, of a great "mystery." 
I do not understand it. But I speak a great 
and most precious revealed fact. Our future 
Resurrection bodies shall be glorious, Spirit- 
248 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ual Bodies, infinitely superior in all respects to 
our present bodies, incorruptible instead of 
corruptible, perfect instead of imperfect, 
strong instead of weak, immortal instead of 
mortal, spiritual instead of material, glorious 
like Christ's own body, instead of inglorious 
and dishonorable as now under the ruin of sin 
and the law of Death. 

Disciples of Christ, great is the bodily exal- 
tation that awaits you. Surely, "it doth not 
yet appear what we shall be." Not our Spirits 
only, but also our Bodies shall be gloriously 
redeemed from sin. These poor, suffering 
bodies of ours, shall also through the redemp- 
tive power of our Divine Lord, be perfectly 
delivered and glorified. 

Let this be our Comfort. Let this be our 
hope. Body, soul and spirit, our whole being, 
will be glorified in the Day of His Coming. 
Rejoice in this blessed truth when you go to 
your grave, and rejoice in it for all your loved 
ones who now sleep there in Jesus. 



249 



THE CHARACTER OF THE 
LORD'S SUPPER. 

A Synodical Communion Sermon, 
TEXT. 

"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the 
communion of the blood of Christ? The bread 
which we break, is it not the communion of the 
body of Christ?" — 1 Corinthians x. 16. 

The Apostle, in this language of our text, 
presents to our attention the Nature of the 
Lord's Supper, declaring it to be a "Com- 
munion" : a communion or a partaking in the 
bread which we eat, and in the wine which 
we drink, "of the Body and of the Blood of 
Christ." 

This, of course, is a great "mystery." We 
know not how it can be. The Scriptures do 
not tell us how Christ is present in this Holy 
Sacrament. Here and elsewhere they simply 
state the fact of this Real Presence of Christ 
in the Supper. The mode or manner of it 
they do not state. That fact, therefore, wheth- 
er we can understand it or not, we must either 
250 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

accept by faith on the statement of it in God's 
word, or, because we cannot understand it, 
assume the responsibility to deny and reject 
it. 

This Holy Supper is the "Farewell Sacra- 
ment" of our Ascended Saviour: His almost 
last act before His Passion and Death as a 
Sacrifice for our Sins. Its institution oc- 
curred under the most tender and solemn pos- 
sible circumstances. The Saviour's life-work, 
upon earth, was almost finished ; His ministry 
of teaching and of revelation to man of the 
will and purposes of God was fast drawing 
to a close; and His feet were trembling, as it 
were, upon the threshold of the door opening 
out before Him to Gethsemane and to Cal- 
vary. Only a few hours more, and He would 
be in the hands of His enemies ; and, as man's 
Substitute, He would be enduring the curse 
of the broken divine law, and would be drink- 
ing the bitter cup of divine wrath for human 
guilt. 

Under such circumstances, and in that sol- 
emn hour, gathering His disciples around Him, 
He instituted this Blessed "Sacrament." The 
2 5i 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

holy Evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke; 
together with the holy Apostle, St. Paul, all 
note this feature of the specially solemn time 
and tender circumstances of its institution; as 
if desirous thus to emphasize its sacredness, 
and to impress us with its preciousness and 
tenderness, and all of them using the same lan- 
guage, saying: "Our Lord Jesus Christ, in 
the night in which He was betrayed/' as His 
farewell act, and as His last act of love be- 
fore going to the cross, "took bread, and when 
He had given thanks He brake it, and gave it 
unto His disciples, saying: Take, eat, this is 
my body which is given for you : Do this in 
remembrance of me. Likewise, after the Sup- 
per, He took the cup, gave thanks, and gave 
it to them, saying : Drink ye all of this ; this 
cup is the New Testament in my blood, which 
is shed for you and for many for the remis- 
sion of sins : Do this, as often as ye drink 
it, in remembrance of me." 

This Sacrament was instituted, we are there- 
fore here taught, as a Commemorative Ordi- 
nance, as a Memorial Sacrament. Jesus 
wished to be remembered by His disciples. 
252 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

He did not want to be forgotten by them when 
once out of their sight. "Do this," He says, 
"in remembrance of me"; meaning by these 
words : "I am about to be withdrawn in vis- 
ible bodily form from you; you will see and 
hear me no more : the old relation which has 
subsisted between us in the flesh is now about 
to be terminated; but when I am gone, I do 
not want to be forgotten, I want you still to 
think of me, to bear me tenderly and lovingly 
in your mind and heart, to remember what 
I was to you while I was here with you ; what 
I have spoken to you; how I love you; how 
I even at last died for you upon the cross. In 
a word, this command : "Do this in remem- 
brance of me/' was a tender appeal to His 
disciples to be cherished in their memory when 
once, after His death and ascension, He would 
visibly be no longer with them. 

There is a revelation in all this of the true 
humanity of Christ. For how genuinely hu- 
man is this desire to be remembered by our 
friends when once we are gone! 

A n d, in compliance with His wish, Christ, 
in this Sacrament, has also been remembered. 
253 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

This Sacrament, thus instituted "in the night 
of His betrayal" by our Saviour, in order that 
He might be remembered, has been sacredly 
observed by the Church, in obedience to her 
Lord's command, in all ages and lands, ever 
since. Doctrinal differences concerning it, 
almost without number, have marked, and 
alas ! have also divided the Church in all her 
history ; and the followers of Christ, even now 
yet, see not "eye to eye" with regard to its 
content or essential nature. But, to all, it is 
still a precious " Sacrament ," and is observed, 
with rare exceptions, by all who profess His 
name, in obedience to the command of their 
one common Lord. In her past history the 
Church has been driven by the cruel hand of 
persecution out into the wilderness, and has 
been compelled to hide herself in dens and 
caves of the earth, in catacomb and forest and 
field; has been homeless ,and shelterless; has 
been without sanctuary or altar ; and yet always 
even in her darkest days has she heeded this 
command of her dying Lord, and, in her 
use of this holy Sacrament has honored Him 
254 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

as her Saviour, and has fed upon Him as her 
living bread. 

And thus she is today still doing. In Prot- 
estant, in Greek, and in Roman Catholic 
branches of the Christian Church, on continent 
and island of the sea, in Gospel and in heathen 
lands, wherever Christ anywhere has those that 
love and fear Him, there also, in some form, 
and with some approach of fidelity to its right 
apprehension and use, seeking her Lord in 
it, and striving by its observance to honor Him, 
the Church, today, as ever since the night of 
its institution, observes this Sacrament of the 
Altar. 

And thus, also, will she observe it to the 
very end of time. For always will Christ have 
a church in the world, and always, until time 
shall be no more, will that Church also honor 
her Lord by the use of His parting sacra- 
ment; as the Apostle teaches, when he says, 
"As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this 
cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He 
come." 

And may it not be that even in the life 
eternal, in the Church redeemed and triumph- 
255 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ant above, when once the saints of all ages, 
and of all lands, shall be gathered into the 
one General Assembly and Church of the First 
Born on high, may it not be that even there 
and then it still will, in some form, be eter- 
nally observed? Most probably it will be. 
As a remembrance of Calvary, as an eternal 
medium of Communion with Christ, and of 
feasting upon Him, even in His immediate and 
glorified presence, it is probable that this Holy 
Sacrament will still be observed. "Verily I 
say unto you, I will drink no more of the 
fruit of the vine until that day that I drink- 
it new in the Kingdom of God." "They shall 
hunger no more, neither thirst any more; 
for the Lamb which is in the midst of the 
throne shall feed them, and shall lead them 
unto living fountains of waters.'' How in- 
spiring the thought. 

In its moral and spiritual influences and 
benefits this Holy Sacrament is incalculably 
precious. It is a full rich "channel of grace" 
to the believing soul; a divinely established 
medium in which Christ Himself is received as 
256 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

a savor of life unto life by all those who come, 
in true spiritual worthiness, to it. 

I. There is no other ordinance which brings 
so vividly before us, as does this, the great 
central fact of our Saviour's atoning death for 
us upon Calvary. Regarding it still as a mere- 
ly commemorative ordinance, it points us back 
to Golgotha ; reveals to us the Cross ; tells us 
of atonement, of vicariousness, of substitution ; 
speaks to us of Christ, the innocent One, dying 
for us, the guilty ones ; pictures to us our re- 
demption, not with silver and gold, but with 
the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb 
without blemish and without spot. Using the 
Apostle's language, we may say that Christ, 
in this Sacrament, is evidently set forth, cru- 
cified before us. The broken bread speaks to 
us of his broken body. The cup, with its crim- 
son contents, tells us of His Blood : ''the blood 
of the New Testament which is shed for many 
for the remission of sins." 

All this is, indeed, most precious truth; the 
very core and heart of the Gospel ; so that 
every time we come to the Lord's Table we 
come also, as it were anew to our Lord's Cross, 

2 = 7 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

And we all, in this day, need as Christians, 
to emphasize to our faith this old Gospel fact. 
Much of our modern theology is tainted with 
unsoundness of this vital fact. "The Cross," 
now, as of old, is to many an "offence. " With 
many there is but a feeble apprehension of 
human sinfulness, of man's guilt before God 
as a sinner, and of his need of a Saviour ; and 
hence, there is also a corresponding tendency to 
lower, and even to ignore entirely, the atoning 
nature of the death of Christ; to spurn what 
they scornfully call "blood theology," as the 
true solution of the mystery of that Death. 

But, reject it who will, it still remains true, 
and will abide eternally true, that we are saved 
"by the Blood" ; that the "cross" is the foun- 
tain of our salvation ; that Christ, by His death 
in our stead, and as a Sacrifice for our sins, 
saved us from death; in a word, that the 
"Atonement" is a precious central fact: the 
pivotal fact in the whole amazing divine scheme 
of human redemption. "Having made peace," 
says the Apostle, "through the Blood of His 
Cross." "Neither by the blood of goats and 
calves, but by His own blood, He entered in 
258 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

once into the Holy Place, having obtained 
eternal redemption for us ;" "And they sung 
a new song, saying : Thou art worthy to take 
the book, and to open the seals thereof, for 
thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God 
by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue 
and people, and nation." 

Hold fast, then, my brethren, as the central 
fact of redemption, to the atoning character of 
the death of Christ. Regard it, now and al- 
ways, as a most precious divine verity. Em- 
phasize the Cross. Make much of the Blood 
of Christ. Keep on singing, as from childhood 
you have sung: 

"There is a fountain filled with blood, 
Drawn from Immanuers veins ; 

And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, 
Lose all their guilty stains." 

This law or principle of Vicariousness ex- 
ists, indeed, everywhere under God's moral and 
providential Government. The most common 
experience in common life is vicarious pain. 
In the home, society, the state, we continually 
see one person bearing the suffering due to 
259 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

another. Luthardt says, "Love is, in its na- 
ture, substitutionary." Parents bear their 
children's burdens; one friend takes another's 
pain. 

It is sometimes said that vicarious suffering 
is not just or equitable. Objection is made 
that the "innocent cannot in fairness, bear the 
punishment of the guilty." True, if the suf- 
ferer receives no adequate compensation. But 
Christ was rewarded. "He saw of the travail 
of His soul and was satisfied." True, if there 
was unwillingness on the part of either party 
to the transaction. But there is none here. 
Christ is willing to suffer ; God is willing that 
Christ should suffer ; and if, now, the sinner is 
willing that God should save him through the 
suffering of Christ, who shall offer objection? 

,It is also said that this view of the atone- 
ment encourages a continuance in sin. Just the 
reverse is true. Paul answers that objection in 
Romans vi. 1-4. 

Believe it, then, and rest your trust for sal- 
vation solidly on it. Let it be a blessed reality 
in the grasp of your faith here, to-day. The 
design of this Holy Supper is to give it such 
260 



Jov in the Divine Government. 

reality to your faith, and to make the death 
of your Saviour as a High-Priestly and Sacri- 
ficial act stand out before the vision of your 
soul in all possible clearness, and fulness, and 
joy. 

II. This blessed Sacrament is, however, to 
us as believers and disciples of Christ, infinitely 
more than merely thus commemorative of His 
death. It communicates, as well as commem- 
orates. It brings to us a present Christ, with 
all the treasures of His saving grace, as well 
as reminds us of the historic Christ that once 
was : the Christ who once in the past lived, 
and then died for us upon the Cross. It pre- 
sents to us a Saviour living now, actually now 
present with us in this Holy Sacrament, giving 
Himself to us now, as once upon Calvary, eigh- 
teen hundred years ago, He gave Himself for 
us. , 

The blessings which Christ here, in this 
Holy Sacrament, in and with Himself, bestows 
upon us, as His believing disciples, are both 
many and precious. He here brings us indeed 
into His banqueting chamber and His banner 
over us is "Love." 

261 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Here at our Saviour's Table, we, as Chris- 
tians, have, first of all, the blessed assurance 
and joy of the full pardon of all our sins. 

"Calvary" was, as we have seen, an atone- 
ment for sin. Whose? "Mine," says the be- 
liever, as he stands at the Table of his cru- 
cified Lord, "Mine." He here hears the Saviour 
say to him: "Take, eat, this is My body 
which is broken for you." "This cup is the 
New Testament in My blood which is shed 
for you." "For you." "For me?" cries the 
believer. "Yes," says the Divine Word, "for 
you." "Thank God," his faith now exclaims, 
"it was for me." "He loved me and gave 
Himself for me; my Lord and my God; O 
Christ, I accept the work which Thou didst 
there thus accomplish for me, and which the 
Holy Ghost now in the Word, offers to me; 
trusting that word, word sure as God Himself, 
word divine which can never be broken, I 
know I am pardoned, justified, saved." 

"My soul looks back to see 
The burden Thou didst bear 

When hanging on the cursed tree, 
And knows her guilt was there." 
262 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

And thus, by simple faith in the Word of 
Christ, spoken in the institution of this Holy 
Sacrament, the believing communicant has the 
assurance and joy as he partakes of it that 
he is, indeed, a pardoned and saved sinner. 

But, here at the Lord's Table, we have, 
also, as Christians, not only the deepest appre- 
hensions of the greatness of Christ's love for 
us, but also the warmest quickening of our 
love to Him. 

At no other time does the infinite largeness 
of the love of Christ for us sinners so impress 
us as here at His Table. How eloquent of 
divine love this holy ordinance is ! How touch- 
ingly it shows us, as it were, the very heart 
of God! That death of Christ on Calvary, 
which the Lord's Supper exhibits, was, indeed, 
the highest possible expression of the infinite 
love. So the Scriptures always express it. 
"God so loved the world that He gave His 
Only-Begotten Son." Christ, "having loved 
His own, which were in the world, loved them 
even unto the end." "Greater love hath no 
man than this, that a man lay down his life 
for his friend, but God commendeth His love 
263 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

toward us in that while we were yet sinners, 
Christ died for us." Thus was infinite, unmer- 
ited, divine love the inspiration of that death 
on Calvary of Christ Jesus for us. And now 
that "love" this "Holy Supper," as in a pic- 
ture or object lesson, reveals before us. Faith 
sees it. And as it is thus looked at by faith 
through these broken emblems the Holy Spirit 
whispers to the soul of the believer : "It was 
thee whom He thus loved unto death; it was 
for thy salvation that He thus bowed Himself 
in the bitterness of all that dreadful agony : 

For love of thee He bled, 

And all in torture died; 
'Twas love for thee that bowed His head, 

And oped his gushing side. 

And this revelation to us in the Lord's Sup- 
per of Christ's love for us, serves, also to 
quicken our love to Him. Made, in this blessed 
ordinance, to realize the greatness of Christ's 
love for us, we also, as we stand at the Lord's 
Table, are in return quickened in our love 
for Him. Here, more than any where else, 
we are made to love Him, because here we 
264 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

are made to see and feel as nowhere else, how 
much He loved us. The love of Christ here 
constraineth us. The sight, by faith, of the 
Cross of our Saviour, the witnessing thus of 
His great Love for us, and of all which, moved 
by love, He suffered for us and purchased for 
us, melts our hard hearts, starts tears of grate- 
ful love to our eyes, and draws us in reciprocal 
love to Him as our Infinite Benefactor. And, 
moved by this quickened love, we fall in holy 
adoration before Him, and, in our hearts, cry 
out to Him: "I love Thee, I love Thee, O 
Christ. Thy love has won me. I cannot but 
love Thee. 

"Yes ! Thou shalt always have my heart, 
My soul, my strength, my all ; 

With life itself 111 freely part, 
My Jesus, at Thy call." 

But this Holy Sacrament is precious also to 
us because there is no time when, as believers 
in Christ, our love for each other is so quick- 
ened, and when our hearts are so melted into 
fervent and fraternal unity. 

Here, at the Lord's Table, we are made to 
265 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

realize, as nowhere else, that we are brethren. 
In the holy presence of our common Lord, 
in this Communion, all strife is hushed, all 
wrongs forgiven, all enmities melted into love 
in the light and warmth of the love of Christ, 
Him Who is the Great Reconciler of us all to 
all alienations reconciled in the presence of 
God. 

It is said of Bishop Warburton, of England, 
that in giving the cup, on one occasion, to 
a communicant who had been his life-long 
enemy, he tenderly bent over him and said: 
"Dear brother, let this cup to-day be the cup 
of mutual love and reconciliation between us." 
So it has often been between those who had 
been estranged. So should it always be be- 
tween all who come together to their Mas- 
ter's Table. So let it here be, to-day. So it 
is, I trust. When you come here then, to-day, 
to your Master's Table, stand close together, 
my brethren. Let heart beat warm to heart. 
Let hand clasp hand in love. Forget not 
that ye are all children in the same blessed 
household of faith, heirs of the same God 
and joint-heirs with the same Lord Jesus 
266 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Christ, to the same inheritance, even that 
which is "incorruptible, and undefiled, and that 
fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you." 

But this Holy Sacrament is more yet in 
blessing even than all this, to those who come 
to it in true faith. 

It not only thus, in its subjective influences, 
brings us spiritually to Christ, and to each 
other, but better than all these it also brings 
Christ to us, gives to us our personal Lord Him- 
self. This is, indeed, in the deepest, truest sense 
of the word, a Sacrament, "commanded of God 
and having the promise of grace." In the 
words of our Catechism, "It is the Body and 
Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the 
external signs of bread and wine, given unto 
Christians, to eat and drink, as it was insti- 
tuted by Christ Himself." 

,This Holy Sacrament has in itself objective 
reality, inherent sacramental character and 
blessing. It is, by virtue of its divine insti- 
tution, a channel or "Means of Grace." We 
do not make it such means of grace : Christ 
has made it all this. We put nothing into it; 
we only receive from it the divine contents 
267 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

which Christ has placed in it, namely, the 
grace, the heavenly blessing, Christ Himself, 
Who, through it, communicates Himself to all 
who eat and drink of it. 

It is not a mere remembrance, a mere con- 
fession, a mere witnessing : it is really a "com- 
munion/' an actual feeding of the soul upon 
the glorified Christ. It is the Lord's Supper. 
Jesus Himself is in this sacrament, and through 
it, He is offered to, and received by, all who 
partake of it. As our Confession declares : 
"Of the Supper of the Lord they teach that 
the Body and Blood of Christ are truly pres- 
ent, and truly communicated to those that eat 
in the Lord's Supper." Or, as even Dr. Watts 
has sung: 

"Here, at Thy table, Lord, we meet 

To feed on food divine; 
Thy body is the Bread we eat, 

Thy precious Blood the wine." 

To this Holy Sacrament we are now, as 
Brethren in the Gospel Ministry, and as fellow 
members of the Church of Christ, about to 
come. "All things are now ready." The 
Feast is prepared. The Master Himself has 
268 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

set for us the Table. "Thou preparest a table 
before me in the presence of my enemies, Thou 
anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth 
over." And now he invites us to it, and waits 
to welcome us as His guests. 

Come, then. Come, hungering after Christ 
as the divine food for your soul. Come, thirst- 
ing for Christ, as the divine water of life, 
"of which if a man drink he shall never thirst." 
Come in humility, in penitence, in faith, in love, 
in renewed consecration of yourself, and your 
all, for time and eternity, to Him. And, thus 
coming, we, as the disciples on the way to 
Emmaus, holding blessed converse and com- 
panionship here to-day with our Risen Lord, 
shall feel the warm glow of His love, and shall 
say to each other: "Did not our heart burn 
within us while He talked with us by the way ?" 

Brethren of the Gospel Ministry. You espe- 
cially will, to-day, rejoice to stand here to- 
gether at the Table of your Divine Lord. 
Toiling, as we are, in widely separated Fields ; 
often burdened with duties and cares and sor- 
rows beyond our strength ; isolated, lonely, and 
often cast down ; how we long for each other. 
269 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

How our hearts ache, at times, for each other's 
presence, and sympathy, and words of cheer. 
To-day that longed-for joy is realized. We are 
to-day together. And together we are now 
to stand here, side by side, at this Table of 
our Master. It is a blessed privilege. I rejoice 
in it. My heart quickens at the thought. I 
grow impatient in my love for you, as brother 
ministers, and as brethren in Christ, to come 
with you here. May He, whose servants we 
are, whom we preach, and to whom we have 
given up our lives, as His ambassadors; He, 
who is the Chief Shepherd of us all ; may He, 
I say, to-day, gloriously and abundantly impart 
Himself in all the fulness of His Divine- 
Human Person, to each one of us. May He 
fill us with the comfort and strength of the 
Holy Ghost. May we here, by this food from 
heaven, be girded anew for our work. And 
having all stood faithfully at our various posts 
of duty, and done for Him here on earth our 
work, when at last one by one we fall in death, 
as soon w T e will, may it only be to arise and 
awake in that other and heavenly life, where 
forever we shall be with each other and with 
the Lord. 

270 



DR. MARTIN LUTHER AS A 
CHRISTIAN. 

TEXT. 
u He being dead yet speaketh" — Hebrews vxi. 4. 

To a consideration of this purely Christian 
side of Dr. Luther's character, or to the con- 
templation of Luther simply as a disciple of 
Christ, I wish, to-day, to invite your atten- 
tion. It is both an interesting and profitable 
subject, and its study will do us good. Mar- 
tin Luther, as an example of piety, commends 
himself to the imitation of us all, and, in this 
respect especially, he, being dead, yet speak- 
eth. 

Considering him in this respect, let us look 
at Luther's piety. 

I. In its experimental and deeply spir- 
itual BEGINNING \ AND 

II. In its lofty subsequent development 

AND MATURITY. 

Luther's Christian life began where a gen- 
uine Christian life always begins, and where 
271 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

alone it can begin; viz., in his personal spirit- 
ual quickening by the Holy Ghost. It began 
in his coming by faith, as a lost sinner, to 
Christ, and in his acceptance of Him as his 
own personal Saviour. From his childhood 
he had not only been strictly moral but had 
also been in external devotion exceedingly re- 
ligious. Never had a day of his life passed 
without Prayer. Always he had faithfully 
observed every requirement of the Church, 
and no known religious duty did he ever omit. 
Like Paul, he was, "in the law blameless. " 
But yet, with all this fidelity to the external 
duties of a religious life, he had no true peace ; 
no real rest of conscience. He still felt bur- 
dened with a sense of guilt and of unreconcil- 
iation to God. "How shall man be just with 
God?" "What shall it profit a man if he gain 
the whole world and lose his soul?" These 
were questions which often, he tells us, 
pressed heavily upon him and often filled him 
with inexpressible wretchedness. No one, per- 
haps, ever had a deeper sense of sin or came 
under a deeper sense of his lost and ruined 
state because of sin, than he did. When 
272 



Joy in the Diving Government. 

Alexis, one of his intimate college friends, 
was assassinated he was most deeply affected, 
and cried out: "What would have become of 
me had I thus suddenly been called away?" 
Soon afterward, in the same year, 1505, when 
on a visit to his parents, a short distance from 
Erfurt, he was overtaken by a terrific thun- 
derstorm, and was filled with terror at the 
thought that his hour had come, and that he 
might now be summoned to meet God. Fall- 
ing upon his knees he prayed earnestly for 
mercy. And thus, for several years, he felt 
fiis guilt ; saw the pollution of his soul ; real- 
ized himself a lost, undone sinner, seeking 
peace meanwhile in the prescribed works and 
ceremonies of the Church and in efforts at 
self-salvation, with none to show him to Christ 
and to the Cross. So great was his convic- 
tion that, at length, when he was a student in 
the University of Erfurt, his distress of soul, 
under this burden of his sinfulness and lost 
condition became so great, so utterly intoler- 
able, that, relinquishing all the fine prospects 
before him, he fled into the neighboring Au- 
gustinian Monastery, hoping there, by pen- 
273 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ances and vigils and fasts and bodily morti- 
fications, to work out a righteousness which 
should be well-pleasing to God and bring him 
the peace of soul for which he longed. But 
the more he thus sought, the deeper he sank 
in spiritual wretchedness; the denser became 
the gloom of his soul ; the heavier pressed upon 
him his burden of bitter anguish. 

One day, when sitting at the table in the 
Monastery silent and dejected, the Vicar-Gen- 
eral said to him : " Why are you so sad, Brother 
Martin ?" "Ah," he replied, "my sins, my sins. 
Alas, I do not know what will become of me." 
"It is vain/' he cried, "that I make promises. 
Sin is ever the strongest." Then the Vicar- 
General, Staupitz by name, who was himself 
a true believer in Christ, said to him : "Why do 
you thus torment yourself? Look at the 
wounds of Jesus Christ. Look to the blood 
which He shed for you. Instead of torturing 
yourself thus about your sins, and trying your- 
self to atone for them, throw yourself, by 
faith, with them, into the Redeemer's arms. 
Trust in Him; in the righteousness of His 
life, in the atonement of His death. Do not 
274 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

shrink back. God is not angry with you. It 
is you who are angry with God." 

Like a direct voice from heaven came these 
gospel-words to Luther's wounded spirit. In 
a moment he now saw it all ; saw God's whole 
plan of salvation. Man is justified before 
God, not by works but only through faith in 
the blood of Christ. "God forgives man," he 
exclaims, "freely, fully, immediately, alone 
for the sake of Christ. By believing in Christ, 
by trusting my soul to Christ, God promises 
to forgive me. I do believe. I believe in the 
forgiveness of sins. I believe in the forgive- 
ness, for Christ's sake, of my sins. I now 
believe." 

Thus believing, at once the burden fell 
from his soul, and the peace of mind which 
he had so long sought was, at last, his. As 
D'Aubigne writes : "From this moment light 
sprung up in the heart of that young monk of 
Erfurt. The word of divine pardoning grace 
had been spoken to him; he believed it; and 
now, disclaiming all self-merit of salvation, 
he resigns himself confidingly to the favor 
of God through Jesus Christ." 
275 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Yet other experiences, however, were neces- 
sary to bring Luther out into the full assur- 
ance of this new life in Christ into which he 
had thus been brought. And these, also, God 
gave him. 

Several years after this date, while Luther 
was engaged in his duties as a professor in 
the University of Wittenberg (in 1509), and 
whilst preparing lectures on the Epistle to 
the Romans, he came to the passage : "The 
just shall live by faith.'' His meditations on 
this Epistle had brought much of the light of 
truth into his soul; but now. this passage 
impresses him with more than ordinary em- 
phasis. He receives it into his heart as a spe- 
cial message from God. It gives strength 
henceforth to the life of God in his soul. It 
brings him victory in every hour of doubt 
and conflict. On a journey to Rome (in 15 10 
or possibly later), and being stricken down 
with sickness at Bologna, his former distress 
of mind again weighed heavily upon him, es- 
pecially his sense of sin, in view of the near- 
ness of the judgment. But just when his an- 
guish was at its height this same word — "The 
276 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

just shall live by faith" — again beamed in 
upon his soul as a special ray from heaven. It 
dispelled his fears and again brought him 
peace and joy. 

But Luther was not yet in the full and abid- 
ing possession of gospel freedom. He was 
still somewhat under the influence of a lin- 
gering delusion. He could not yet fully rid 
himself of the almost universal belief in the 
efficiency of indulgences, and of masses, 
prayers, and other good works, to deliver the 
soul from the fires of purgatory. Having ar- 
rived at Rome, he was one day, under the 
power of this delusion, ascending upon his 
knees "Pilate's Staircase." Whilst thus en- 
gaged, he seemed to hear a voice speaking to 
him in thundertones from the very depths of 
his soul: "The just shall live by faith." It 
was enough. Horrified, and ashamed of his 
superstition and degradation, he sprung from 
his knees, a free man forever — free in the ful- 
ness of the gospel of Christ, and free from 
the delusions and superstitions of Rome, for- 
ever. He now speaks of himself as being 
277 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

born again a new man, and as entering by an 
opened door into Paradise itself. 

God had now given His own work His own 
finishing touch. He had taught Luther fully 
the doctrine of <<r Juistificatior^ by Faith alone;" 
and it, through Luther, went out henceforth 
as the Church's hope, to fall no more forever. 
Luther and the Church could henceforth sing : 
"Ich habe nun den grund gefunden: 

I now have found the sure foundation, 

That holds my anchor evermore; 
'Tis found alone in Christ's redemption, 
And naught was in God's plan, before; 
This anchor-ground shall ever stay, 
When earth and heaven have passed away. 

Thus did Luther, as a Christian, begin at 
the real and true beginning of a Christian life. 
He came ; as a convicted, sin-burdened soul, 
to Christ. He cast himself, as such, by faith 
on Christ, and on Him alone, for the salvation 
he needed. He saw, in all its evangelical ful- 
ness and clearness, God's method of saving- 
sinners. He heartily accepted it. He, at once, 
also felt and knew its blessed saving power in 
278 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

his own soul. At once, also, he was assured 
that he was in Christ; that he was reconciled 
to God ; and that he had the testimony of the 
Holy Ghost within his own heart through 
faith in God's word, that his sins, for Christ's 
sake, were pardoned, and that he now was in- 
deed an heir of heaven. 

And that also, I may add, was the birth- 
hour of the Reformation. Then, already, 
when Luther thus was once brought to see 
that God's plan of saving sinners is, not by 
works of man's righteousness, but only and 
fully through simple faith in the Lord Jesus 
Christ, then, I say, was the great Protestant 
Reformation, also, born ; a Reformation whose 
essential and cardinal doctrine is the great 
gospel doctrine of "Justification alone by 
Faith." 

The true anniversary therefore of the Ref- 
ormation is not the anniversary of Luther's 
natural birth, November ioth, 1483, nor of the 
nailing up of the ninety-five theses, but the 
anniversary of his new, spiritual quickening. 
The day when he thus first experienced, 
through faith in Christ, that his sins were for- 
279 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

given, that he was a redeemed and reconciled 
child of God; that was the day on which the 
Reformation was really born, the day when 
the Gospel was again restored to man. 

In view of this conversion, and real heart- 
consciousness of his salvation, which Luther 
thus experienced, let no one ever regard Luth- 
er as some wrongly do, as a mere formalist or 
half Romanist in religion. No one ever had 
a deeper personal religious experience than 
he. No one knew better than he what "Ex- 
perimental Piety" is. 

Proceeding, let us now notice : 

II. — The Christian character or piety of 
Luther in its splendid subsequent development 
or maturity. 

Luther not only began well as a Christian, 
but he also continued well as such. He not 
only received the new life of Christ into his 
soul, but he also cultivated and carefully nour- 
ished what he had thus received. 

There are two means which God has pro- 
vided, by whose faithful use our spiritual or 
new life in Christ can and will be increased, 
and will be made to grow, and expand into 
280 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

healthful and fruitful vigor. Those two 
means are God's Word and Prayer. The 
Word is the soul's true spiritual food, con- 
taining Christ, the Divine Manna from heav- 1 - 
en, and he that eateth of that bread shall never 
hunger. Prayer, as the expression of desire 
and faith, is the spiritual hand by which man 
reaches out and takes hold of this food ; or, in 
answer to which, God imparts the blessed con- 
tents of the Word to the soul, and feeds it 
richly upon that food. And thus by the Word 
of God, including, of course, always the Sac- 
raments which are God's visible word to man, 
the Christian life is nourished and is made 
stronger day by day, down to the close of 
life. 

Thus pre-eminently did Luther, as a Chris- 
tian, nourish the new life of Christ which was 
begun in his baptism and quickened into con- 
ciousness in his conversion. No one, as a 
Christian, ever more loved, and studied, and 
fed upon, and built himself up in christian 
character, by the constant study of the Bible, 
or Word of God, than did Luther. His love 
for it was a very passion in his soul. What- 
281 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

ever might be his other cares and duties, he 
would still find a few hours' time each day 
for the private reading and study of the Sa- 
cred Scriptures; and often he would snatch 
hours of needed rest at night, and devote them 
to meditation upon the precious truths which 
God here in His Word revealed to him. When 
he was a prisoner for nine months in the 
Castle Wartburg, all his time, day and night, 
save only what was absolutely needed for 
sleep, was given up to this one book: God's 
Book. During the five months, also that he 
was a prisoner in the Castle of Coburg, he 
again gave himself up to the study of it alone. 
And, to-day yet, in the room which he then oc- 
cupied in the Castle of Coburg may be seen 
written, in his coarse, bold chirography, all 
over the walls and doors of the room, one pre- 
cious passage of God's word after the other. 
In one place, e. g., are these words : "I shall not 
die but live and declare the works of the Lord." 
In another place, over the head of his bed, is 
this passage: "I will both lay me down in 
peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest 
me dwell in safety." In the museum at Ber- 
282 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

lin there is carefully preserved his hand Bible, 
the copy which he had constantly on his 
study-table, and which he daily used. The 
margin of almost every page is all written 
over with comments, suggestions, holy aspi- 
rations and prayers; and on the title-page he 
has written : "If this, Thy Word, O Lord, do 
not comfort me, I shall perish in misery." 

Thus was the Bible ever a precious book to 
Luther ; and thus did he daily and hourly feed 
his soul upon it, and build himself up in chris- 
tian character and life by it. 

Equally was Luther a man of prayer. His 
biographers tell us that two hours each day 
he gave up to private devotion ; and, in order 
to have them, he would often rise long before 
day, or sit up late in the night, but, under no 
circumstances, would he suffer himself to be 
deprived of this daily private communion with 
God. He never felt himself prepared, is his 
testimony, for the many cares and duties and 
perplexities which each day brought to him, 
until he had first gone in prayer to God, and 
had received strength from Him for them. 
283 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

And his motto was, you know: "To have 
prayed well is to have studied well." 

Thus, all through his life, he was a man of 
prayer. Read his biography, and see what a 
man of prayer he was. Nothing was begun 
or done without prayer. Read his prayer for 
God's help, e. g., before he went into the Diet 
at Worms, where he made such a sublime con- 
fession for Christ. Read his prayer, so ten- 
der and submissive, as he bends over the form 
of his darling little daughter Magdalene, cold 
in death, saying : "I love her exceedingly, but, 
O God, as it is Thy will to take her hence, I 
willingly resign her to Thee." Read his 
prayer at Melanchthon's sick-bed, where, in the 
unyielding importunity of his mighty faith, he 
almost demanded from God his recovery. And 
read, finally, his matchless deathbed prayer, 
where, in peace and triumphant hope, he 
sweetly commits himself and his all into the 
hands of his covenant-keeping God, saying: "I 
thank Thee, O God, the Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, that Thou hast revealed Thy Son 
to me, on whom I have believed, whom I have 
loved; whom I have preached, confessed and 
284 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

worshiped, whom the Pope and all the ungodly 
abuse and slander. O my Lord Jesus, I com- 
mend my poor soul to Thee." 

Thus was our Luther pre-eminently a man 
of prayer. The "Mercy-seat," both in life 
and in death, was his refuge. Thither he car- 
ried all his sorrows. To that blessed heavenly 
arsenal he daily repaired for the spiritual 
weapons he needed, and for needed strength 
to wield them in the desperate conflict he was 
waging against God's foes. His help in every 
time of need, his strength to battle as he did 
against all the mighty hosts of hell by which 
he was ever so sorely besieged, was all gotten 
on his knees; and his whole grand life-work 
for Christ and for His Church was born and 
bathed in his own inner spiritual life of prayer 
and communion with God. 

And so was it also in all the other graces 
which constitute a high and true christian life 
and character. He was eminent in them all, 
and, as a splendid model of christian manhood 
in all respects, "he, being dead, yet speaketh." 
He gave evidence of exalted piety, and mani- 
fested daily, "the fruits of the Spirit" as proof 
285 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

that the Holy Spirit had, indeed, renewed him 
in the image of Christ. His spirit and life 
both declare him to have been, indeed, a true 
child of God, a sincere, earnest, holy disciple 
of the Saviour. 

I claim not, of course, perfection for Luth- 
er as a Christian, for no one is perfect. Faults 
and imperfections may easily be detected both 
in his spirit and life. He made no attempt to 
conceal them. They all lie on the outside of 
his great rugged nature, out in the full sun- 
light of broad and open day. But still study 
that character of his. Get yourself once right 
into the innermost soul of the man. Acquaint 
yourself thoroughly with him. Know his life. 
And where, I ask, in all the world's great 
galaxy of heroes, in all the Church's long cal- 
endar of saints, can you, in lofty christian 
character and sublime nobility of life, find any- 
where his equal. Since the days when Paul 
so majestically trod the earth for Christ, who, 
in strength and perfection of holy spiritual 
being, in loftiness and singleness of aim, in 
high and mighty achievement for Christ, can 
rival this great and good and glorious Luther ! 
286 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

What joy fulness and cheerfulness of christian 
spirit. What submission and resignation to 
God's will under sore affliction. What deep 
consciousness of sin and what oft-repeated and 
humble confession of it before God. What 
simple and evangelical faith in Christ as his 
only ground of justification. What sublime 
christian courage. What brave confession of 
Christ and of His truth, even at the constant 
peril of his life. What unselfish and tire- 
less labors for Christ and His Church. What 
holy, strong and unwavering confidence and 
trust, at all times, in God, even in darkest 
and gloomiest hours, cheering both his own 
soul and those of others, by singing, in in- 
spired words : "God is our refuge and 
strength, a very present help in trouble," or 
by chanting his own sublime "Battle Hymn," 
appropriately called the "Marseillaise of the 
Reformation :" "Ein feste Burg ist unser 
Gott," 

A mighty Stronghold is our God, 
A sure Defence and Weapon. 

Thus, in all the graces which make up 
287 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

christian character, how great was Luther! 
And how, when thus studied and contemplated 
simply as an humble and true disciple of 
Christ, he shows himself, measured by God's 
own word, one of the loftiest and purest, and 
best of all the sanctified host who have made 
up the long history of the Church, and one 
of the saintliest in all the long line of illus- 
trious Christians who shine out in spiritual 
splendor, like stars in the hour of night, from 
the resplendent celestial glory. 

Beloved, in this grandness of his christian 
character and christian life, are we followers 
of Luther? His early convictions of sin, his 
living, peace-speaking faith in Christ as his 
Saviour — have we these ? His love and study 
of God's word — are we like him in that? His 
devotion to prayer — doweresemblehim in that? 
His consecration of his whole self to the service 
and glory of God — in that are we like him? 
His diligence and tireless labor for the salva- 
tion of souls, his zeal for God's cause, his 
fidelity to conscience, his heroism for the 
truth, his brave courage in confessing Christ, 
his humility, his confidence in God, his simple 
288 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

faith in Christ, his holy joy and hope of a 
better life when this life ends — in all these 
christian graces are we like him? Luther's 
grand piety, have we it? By such fellowship 
and by such holy similarity of christian char- 
acter and life are we and he bound together? 
Ah, to be Christians as Luther was; let that 
be our ambition. In that let us all copy and 
follow him. Ever, more and more, in that 
let us covet resemblance to him. 

May the mighty voice of this great man of 
God, this grand moral hero of the ages, this 
sublime champion of Christ and of the Gospel, 
this holy and heroic Luther, fall, to-day, with 
living power, like a voice from heaven, upon 
the conscience and heart of each one of us, 
upon the world dead in sin, and upon the 
Church so cold and formal and in such need 
of a new Reformation, and awake and quick- 
en us all, bringing again a blessing both to 
Church and State; and thus, not only now, 
but on through the coming centuries, and 
down even to the end of time, in louder and 
yet louder tones, may "he being dead" con- 
tinue to speak, speak for our pure Protestant 
289 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Bible-faith, for holy spiritual life and charac- 
ter in all who have named the name of Christ, 
for a Church separate from the world and full 
of the Holy Ghost, speak for the truth, for 
the right, for souls, for Christ, for God. 



290 



THE REFORMATION THE 
WORK OF GOD. 

TEXT. 

"And their appearance and their work was as it 
were a wheel in the middle of a wheel" — Ezekiel 
i. 18, 

It is not necessary to enter into critical ex- 
planation of these words of our text. To 
do so would consume more time than we now 
have at our command. They express, I believe, 
the great Truth that God is in all Human His- 
tory; that in, and over, and above, all Human 
Activities there is ever an all-controlling Divine 
Providence, directing man's thoughts and plans 
and agencies so as to bring about, as the final 
result of all, His own great Moral Ends. It 
is the free agency of Man and the Infinite 
Sovereignty of God conjoined, co-operating, 
unconsciously often on man's part, to effect 
what God wills for man's good and for His 
own Divine Glory. The work which we call 
"History" is, as it were, as our Text declares : 
"A Wheel in the Middle of a Wheel:" the 
291 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

one visible, the other invisible ; the one human, 
the other Divine; the one grinding out, as it 
thinks, its own self-willed and self-accomplished 
results, and yet ever, in doing as it will, achiev- 
ing the purposes of the Higher Will of Him 
Who sits supreme above and over all. 

This great Truth of "God in History" stands 
out with marvellous clearness in connection 
with the Reformation of the Sixteenth Cen- 
tury. The whole history of that Wonderful 
Movement, from first to last, declares that God 
was in it, and that it was all His Work. No 
power less than His could possibly have 
achieved it. No other Philosophy or Solu- 
tion of it than that which recognizes God as 
its Author can ever satisfactorily explain it. 
The Reformation is and can be only the Work 
of God. Whatever may have been the sec- 
ondary aids and occasions of the Vast Move- 
ment; whatever may have been the mighty 
Human Instrumentalities employed by which 
to prosecute it, and by which it was led to 
a successful and glorious issue, still before 
all, back of all, above and over all, as the real 
Cause and Power and Author of all, producing, 
292 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

controlling, and determining all, was God. 
"The world," said Luther, himself, one day, 
"is a vast and magnificent Game of Cards, 
made up of Emperors, Kings, and Princes. 
The Pope, for many Centuries, beat the Em- 
perors, Kings, and Princes. They yielded and 
fell before him. Then came our Lord God. 
He dealt the Cards. He took the lowest, 
Luther, and with it He beat the Pope, that 
Vanquisher of the Kings of the Earth. As 
Mary sung: 'He hath put down the mighty 
from their seats and exalted them of low de- 
gree.' " 

I wish to speak, to-day, upon 

"The reformation as the work of God/' 

I. There is clear proof of divine agency 

ALREADY IN THE MULTIPLIED AND MARKED 
OCCURRENCES WHICH PRECEDED THE REFORMA- 
TION. 

He entirely misconceives the real facts of 

history who supposes that the Reformation, 

like Minerva from the Brow of Jupiter, burst, 

at once, born in a day, upon the World. On 

293 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

the contrary it was, like all real works of 
God, brought into existence slowly. There 
was a long Dawn before Day; Twilight be- 
fore the full-orbed Sunrising; Prophecy of 
better things before those better things them- 
selves were given. As John the Baptist went 
before the Coming Christ, and prepared the 
way for Him, so there were Reformers before 
the Reformation ; Lutherans before Luther ; 
Protestants before Historic Protestantism; 
Providences before the final Providences which 
gave birth, at last, a second time, to Apostolic 
Christianity in the World. 

The Hundred Years preceding the Birth of 
Luther were Years during which God was 
busy, getting the World and Church ready 
for Luther ; and without which Divine Prepar- 
atory Work, Luther would have been an His- 
toric Impossibility, and the Reformation un- 
heard of in the past Annals of Time. But 
God, I repeat, was busy. 

What true Gospel Preachers, for example, 

there were before Luther! John Wicklifife, 

the Morning Star of the Reformation, born 

in 1324 — more than 150 years before Luther, — 

294 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

preached mightily the pure truth, translated 
the Scriptures, lived and died for Christ, and 
left a deep religious impress upon his day and 
age. John Huss, born in 1369 in Bohemia, 
had, a century before Luther, bravely exposed 
the Corruption, and defied the Power, of the 
haughty Church of Rome ; and when, July 6th, 
1415, he was burned at the stake for the heroic 
Confession which he had thus made, there 
was "started a Fire the Red Glow of whose 
Flames flashed far out upon the dark night, 
and continued to shine until, at last, the new, 
longed-for Reformation Day arose." Savona- 
rola, also, the noble Italian Reformer, Patriot, 
Martyr, right in the very Heart of Popedom, 
held faithfully aloft the pure Banner of the 
Cross, and bade men trust for salvation in 
Him who there died for them! And then 
what a long line of noble Martyrs, also, in 
lower Ranks, before Luther, there were ! What 
witnesses for Christ there were, here and there, 
in many Lands, sealing their testimony with 
their blood: more than two hundred having 
been burned as heretics at the Stake in the 
very City of Augsburg, where afterward the 
295 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Reformers made their brave Confession of 
our Holy Faith. And all these witnesses were 
kindling the Fire and preparing the Conditions 
of Success, for the great final Witnessing by 
Luther and his fellow Reformers. 

But there were many other marked prepara- 
tory Providences. The discovery of the Art 
of Printing in the year 1440, less than half 
a Century before Luther was born; the Dis- 
covery of America in 1492, only nine years 
after his Birth; the Overthrow, just at that 
time, of the Dominion of the Moors, who for 
the previous eight hundred years had ruled 
over Southern Spain and had menaced Europe ; 
the Check which, at last, had just then been 
given and the Victories which had just then 
been secured over the invading Turks; the 
Printing, just then, of the Bible ; the Founding 
of the University of Wittenberg, in 1502, by 
the Elector of Saxony, which afterward be- 
came the very Center of the work of the Refor- 
mation; the Conflicts of Rival Popes, and 
the Divisions by which the Church of Rome 
was then torn and shaken to her Center; the 
Jealousy and Contests for Supremacy between 
296 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

the Papal and the Imperial Power; the Re- 
vival of Learning, and especially of the Study 
of the Classics, and of Biblical Hebrew and 
Greek, under Reuchlin and Erasmus and oth- 
ers; the Dethronement of Scholastic Philoso- 
phy, and the awakened Desire of the Literary 
World for a more solid Scholarship ; and, above 
all, the deep-seated and inextinguishable Long- 
ing of Human Hearts, every where, for a 
clearer Knowledge of God, and for a more 
satisfying Way of Salvation: these all reveal 
the Presence and over-ruling Agency of God, 
working in anticipation of the Reformation, 
breaking up the fallow Ground, removing 
obstacles, overturning opposing forces, gather- 
ing the needed materials, kindling and fanning 
the increasing flame, and every where, by the 
awakened mental activities of the age, by social 
upheavals, by political complications and en- 
tanglements, by the growing corruptions and 
oppressions and wicked ambitions even of the 
Church, by the sudden birth and progress of 
Science, of Literature, of Art, of Discovery, of 
Invention: by all of these factors, God Him- 
self, in that Century, trod with Divine Imperial 
297 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

step out ove*r the broad busy Theatre of the 
World's History, and, louder and mightier than 
all other Voices, His Voice commanded : "Pre- 
pare ye the Way of the Lord, make His paths 
straight. Let every Valley be exalted, and 
every Mountain and Hill be made low, and 
the crooked be made straight, and the rough 
places plain; and the Glory of the Lord shall 
be revealed, and all Flesh shall see it together : 
for the Mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 
But we have also: 

II. Clear proof of God's agency in the 

REFORMATION PERIOD ITSELF! IN THE INSTRU- 
MENTS, INFLUENCES, ACTORS, AND FORCES 
THERE EMPLOYED. 

,These are all intensely at work, acting and 
counter-acting on each other, aiding or check- 
mating each other, each with its own special 
object or end in view, and yet each, as we 
can see now, whether Friend or Foe, whether 
desiring to do so or unwilling to do so, each, 
I say, helping on to Success the Great Re- 
formation Work, and all together revealing 
God, presiding over all, and, by and through 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

all, working out His own great Purposes of 
Blessing to the World and to the Church. 

Take Luther, for example, the chief Actor 
in the stirring Drama, the mighty Human 
Leader of the august Movement, the princi- 
pal Instrument, under God, by which the 
sublime Work was achieved — what a child 
of Providence he was ! How his history from 
Beginning to End, shows Divine Purpose, 
Guidance, Protection, Control! What suc- 
cessive Providential Links bind together and 
unify the whole Life of that Wonderful Man ! 
Who can read his Marvellous Biography and 
not be compelled to say : "This Man is a very 
Prophet of the Almighty, divinely created 
for His Work, separated from his very Birth 
to it, directed at every step of his Being in 
it !" Read his Life ! With what transcendent 
natural abilities for his Work did not God 
endow Him ! Physically, mentally, socially ; 
his will, his courage, what traits characterize 
him! And then what a Providential History 
he had! How clearly God's Hand was in it 
all! His birth, for example, of peasant, and 
not of noble, blood, so that the Glory of his 
299 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

great Work could be attributed only to God 
and not to Man ; the Piety of his Parents, and 
their earnest Religious Training of him; his 
Father's Efforts, poor as he was, to give the 
promising boy an Education; the boy's own 
insatiable Thirst for Learning; his painful 
Experiences as a Charity Student at Mans- 
feld, at Magdeburg, at Eisenach, at Erfurt; 
his Poverty, compelling him to sing before 
the doors of the citizens of Magdeburg, cry- 
ing, "Panem propter Deum," "Bread for God's 
sake" ; his Adoption into her home by the com- 
passionate Madam Ursala Cotta, where he 
remained three years ; his astonishing Success 
as a Student in the University of Erfurt, where 
his genius arrested the attention of all, and 
gave promise of a most brilliant Future; his 
Providential Discovery while there of a Copy 
of the Bible; its Effect upon Him, in reveal- 
ing to him the Errors and Corruptions of the 
Church, and, above all, revealing the Sins of 
his own heart, and of his Need of a Saviour ; 
the Incident of the Thunder-Storm, and the 
sudden Death, right by his Side, of his young 
Friend; his own nearness to Death by a 
300 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Wound which he accidentally received; his 
deepening Sense of Sin ; his Flight for Spiritual 
Relief into the Monastery ; his Disappointment ; 
his Direction, through the faithful Study of 
God's Word and the Evangelical Teachings 
of the Vicar-General, to Christ as the bur- 
dened Sinner's only Saviour; his Trust, his 
living Faith in Christ; his Joy, and Peace, in 
his newly- found Saviour; his grasping and 
clear Apprehension, from his own Experience, 
of the cardinal Doctrine of the Gospel, and 
of Protestantism, "Justification by Faith in 
Christ alone/' thus fitting him spiritually, by 
the Holy Spirit's leading of him, to be the 
Leader of the Church, and of the World back 
again to a pure Apostolic Christianity; and 
then, after this, his ordination as Priest; his 
Visit to Rome, and the awful Revelations of 
the Corruptions of the Church, by which his 
honest German Soul, on that Visit, was made 
acquainted and shocked ; his being made Doctor 
of Divinity, when he took a solemn Oath to 
be always true to the Teachings of God's 
Word, and to follow it, at any Sacrifice, wher- 
ever it may lead him ; his Election as Professor 
301 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

of Theology in the University of Wittenberg; 
his righteous Indignation over the Iniquitous 
Sale of Indulgences ; his forced Conflict with 
the Pope ; his compelled Antagonism, more and 
more, even contrary to his own Will, to the 
Church; his Burning of the Papal Bull, by 
which he destroyed the last Bridge to a Recon- 
ciliation with Rome ; his Disputations with the 
Roman Doctors by which, more and more, his 
Eyes were opened, and he came to see the 
wide Difference between Romanism and a Pure 
Christianity; his final open and positive Rup- 
ture with the Church and bold and defiant 
Attitude against her; his Summons, by the 
Emperor, before the Diet of Worms, where, 
at the peril of his Life, he stood up grandly 
for Christ, and was true to his Conscience and 
to the Pure Word of God; his Imprisonment 
in the Wartburg, by which he was providen- 
tially led to translate the Holy Scriptures, the 
greatest Achievement, perhaps, of his whole 
Life, and itself sufficient, if he had done noth- 
ing else, to have immortalized him ; and a thou- 
sand other Occurrences and Experiences in 
his History, stretching down over his whole 
302 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

marvellous Biography: how they all reveal 
God's Hand at every Step, and all show that 
Luther, the mighty human Actor in the great 
Work of the Reformation, was divinely en- 
dowed, fitted for, and guided to and through 
the sublime Reformation which he thus accom- 
plished. 

He is, indeed, willfully blind, and worse than 
blind, who can rise from the Reading of this 
Life of Luther and not be compelled to 
acknowledge: "It was not Luther, but God, 
in and by and through Luther, who wrought 
the Reformation." As Luther himself in his 
grand Battle-Hymn sings: 

"In our strength can naught be done — 

Our loss were soon effected ; 
There fights for us the Mighty One, 
By God Himself elected. 
Ask you who frees us? 
It is Christ Jesus — 

The Lord Sabaoath, 
There is no other God; 
He'll hold the Field of Battle. 

But the Hand of God, in the Reformation, 
is seen, also, in many other Aspects of it. 
303 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

It is seen in the many Powerful Helpers 
in the Work, which, in various Relations, were 
raised up, on every Hand, to help it forward. 
How could the Reformation have ever, for 
example, humanly speaking, succeeded with- 
out the Friendship and Mighty Protection, 
especially in its early Stages, of the noble and 
God-fearing Elector of Saxony? How could 
Luther ever successfully have waged the Con- 
flict he did, had not God raised up, to stand 
by his Side and help him, such grand Assist- 
ants as Melanchthon, Jonas, Bugenhagen, 
Brentius, and other illustrious Co-Workers, all 
over Germany; and such men, also, in course 
of time, in other Lands, as Calvin, and Cran- 
mer, and Knox, who, lighting their Torch of 
Truth at the Altar of the German Reforma- 
tion, bore abroad the blessed Fire of the Gospel 
into other lands, and soon made all Europe 
light with its divine Flame? 

God's Hand is seen, however, also in the 
Checks and Restraints which He then so mani- 
festly threw around the Enemies of the Re 
formation, and by which He kept them back 
from their purpose to utterly destroy. In 
304 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

nothing is God's Agency in connection with 
the Reformation more clearly seen than just 
in this very respect of thwarting the plans of 
the Enemies of the Reformation. Its Preser- 
vation, under the Circumstances, was simply 
a Miracle. It lived only because God marvel- 
lously kept it, holding back, with the bit and 
bridle of His Providence, its infuriated Foes, 
saying to them : "Thus far, and no farther." 
Looking back now upon that Reformation 
Period what a Checkmating of Forces, by the 
Hand of God, cannot we everywhere see ! 
Charles the V., had he been free, would, at 
once, have crushed Luther, and, by one stroke 
of his Imperial Sword, would have ended the 
Reformation. But he was held back by the 
Providential Disposing of things, from doing 
what he thus would have done. At war as 
he then was with the powerful King of France, 
and threatened, as he then w r as on every hand, 
by the Turks, and having troubles in the Neth- 
erlands, and embarrassments in Spain, and 
needing German Money and German Soldiers ; 
anxious as he was to please the Pope by de- 
stroying Luther, he knew full well that he 
305 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

could not afford to offend the Lutheran Princes 
of Germany, and especially the Elector of Sax- 
ony, to whom, indeed, he owed his Imperial 
Crown, but who was an ardent Friend of 
Luther and of the Reformation. And hence, 
thus held in check by these Providential Re- 
straints, which God had thus cast, as bands 
of iron, around him, he was rendered harmless, 
and was compelled to pursue a mild and vacil- 
lating Course toward that which, in his Heart, 
he hated, and would gladly at one fell Stroke 
of his Imperial Power, have destroyed. So 
with regard to the Pope, also, and to the 
Church and the Kings and Princes, who were 
Enemies of the Reformation and hated it with 
an almost fiendish hate ; who stood eager with 
all their Armies, and Wealth, and Influence, 
and Power, to ride it down under their Iron 
Heel into the dust ; they were all, in some 
way, checked and held back from their pur- 
poses by the Invisible and yet Almighty Hand 
of God, and by His Irresistible Voice they 
were bidden : "Touch not Mine Anointed and 
do My Prophets no harm!" 

And there is further Proof that the Reforma- 
306 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

tion was God's Work in the fact that it was 
all accomplished by no other Weapon or Means 
than simply God's Word. The one great 
Means, above all others, by which the Reforma- 
tion was effected was the Word of God. Moral 
weapons alone were used for a great Moral 
End. God, in the Reformation, employed and 
honored, as an Instrument of mighty Spiritual 
Power, only His own Inspired Truth; that 
Sacred Volume of which Rome had long cru- 
elly robbed the World, but which it was the 
glorious Mission of the Reformation again to 
unloose, and, in all its unchained and open 
Freeness, again to give back to Earth's spiritu- 
ally famished Millions. The Bible, God's 
Word, first made Luther free and led him 
into the Light and Liberty of Christ; and 
then, by that one single Instrumentality, "the 
Sword of the Spirit," he went forth and cut 
off from Men the Cords of Ignorance and 
Spiritual Bondage by which every where they 
were bound, and gave to them also, the same 
Freedom which God's Word had given him. 
That Word he translated; that Word he 
preached with inspired Eloquence from the 
307 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

pulpit; that Word he simplified in Catechisms 
for the Children; that Word he expounded 
and applied in countless printed Volumes, 
which were scattered every where and read by 
eager Millions; and that Word, during the 
Thirty-Nine Years of his Connection with the 
University of Wittenberg, he taught as Theo- 
logical Professor to thousands on thousands 
of Students, who afterward became Ministers, 
and went every where preaching that Word 
which they had heard from his lips, and thus 
was God's Word the Means by which the 
Reformation was achieved. This was the 
Weapon by which the Battle was fought. 
Against Papal Anathema, against Imperial 
Ban, against Fires of Persecution, against 
Wealth, and Custom, and Superstition, and 
Prestige, and Power, against all these it won 
its way into Life and Victory, and planted 
itself immovably, as a mighty Moral and Reli- 
gious Factor, in the very Life-Current of the 
World. Not by force of Arms, not by the 
Power chiefly of Learning and Scholarship, 
not by the Friendship of Kings and Great Ones 
of the Earth, but in spite of these, by this one 
308 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

Mighty Agency of the Word of God ; the Word 
of God preached, and taught, and lived, by 
men who themselves had experienced its 
Power; the Word of God vivified and driven 
home on men's Consciences and Souls by the 
Holy Ghost, its Divine Author, by this it was 
that the Reformation was born, and was car- 
ried on, step by step, to glorious Victory, and 
thus proved itself, by this very means of its 
achievement, to be, indeed, the Work of God. 
Mighty Power of the Word of God ! Foe of 
Rome! Bulwark of Protestantism! Key- 
stone of the Everlasting Arch of Christianity ! 
Only Means needed by the Church, then or 
now, or any time, for Defence, for Conquest, 
for Victory ! God's Word ! Sole Rule of Faith 
and Life to the Reformers, sole Weapon of 
their Defence, sole Ground of their Comfort, 
Hope and Joy, sole Instrumentality by which 
they wrought their grand work for God and 
for the World! May that simple Word of 
God ever thus, also, be our Trust ! And, with 
Luther, clasping the Bible to our Hearts, using 
it as our Tower of Defence, let us bid defiance 
to World and Devil, singing: 
309 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

"And were the World with Devils filled, 

All waiting to devour us, 
We'll still succeed, so God hath willed — 
They cannot overpower us; 

The Prince of this World 
To hell shall be hurled; 
He seeks to alarm, 
But can do us no harm ; 
God's smallest Word can fell him." 

Passing now to a final thought, I yet remark, 

III. That in the perpetuity and growth 

OF PROTESTANTISM, SINCE THE REFORMATION, 
WE HAVE A STILL FURTHER PROOF THAT THE 
REFORMATION WHICH GAVE BIRTH TO PROT- 
ESTANTISM WAS INDEED THE WORK OF GOD. 

After four Centuries Protestantism still 
lives. Through all the mighty opposition 
which has, from time to time, been arrayed 
against her, she has successfully fought her 
way. Through the Thirty Years' War, 
through the unceasing Hostility of the Church 
of Rome, through the Tortures of the Inqui- 
sition, through all the Wiles and Ceaseless 
Activities of Jesuitism, through the Enmity of 
310 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

powerful kings and nations, through the Early 
Strife of its Leaders and its oft-repeated own 
internal Dissensions and Schisms, through the 
Reactionary Age of its own Lifeless Ortho- 
doxy, through the long, dark night, in its very 
Birthplace, of heartless Rationalism, through 
all the fierce and persistent Assaults upon it 
of Religious Indifferentism, of FalSe Protest- 
antism, of Romanizing Ritualism, through all 
these this Work of the Reformation has bat- 
tled its Course, and still lives, a "Burning 
Bush," burning yet never consumed, because 
God, its Divine Author, is in it, and keeps it, 
and by its very Preservation amid all these 
mighty Forces which have thus been mar- 
shalled for its Destruction says to all : "This 
Work of the Reformation is My Work. Pro- 
testantism is My child. And because I am its 
Preserver it lives and will live." 

And see, also, as another proof that it is, 
indeed, God's Work, to what marvellous Great- 
ness, under God's Blessing, it has, in these 
Four Centuries, attained. "Protestantism" is 
to-day the Religion of the Civilized world! 
Over one hundred millions of souls are enrolled 
311 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

under its Banners and hold and confess its 
precious Faith, and over four hundred millions 
are under its sway and influence. In Numbers, 
in Intelligence, in Influence, in Moulding 
Power over the Governments, Laws, Institu- 
tions, Literature, Commerce, of the World it 
has risen into Queenly Supremacy; and, to- 
day, sways its controlling Sceptre over all the 
Earth. God has thus made her great. He 
only could thus have made her great. And 
thus, also, He has acknowledged her as His, 
and has placed upon her the Stamp of His 
divine Approbation, declaring her thus to be 
a Tree of His own Planting, a Fountain of 
Living Water of His own Opening, whose 
Healing Waters have flowed and shall flow 
on for the assuaging of the World's Thirst 
down to the End of Time. 

And, further: in the very Character of the 
Blessings which Protestantism has conferred 
upon the World, we have additional Proof 
of its Divine Origin and have still other Evi- 
dence that God only can be its Author. How 
numerous, how invaluable, how elevating, how 
ennobling its blessings ! Universal Emancipa- 
312 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

tion of Thought, Freedom of Conscience, Lib- 
erty of Speech, of Press, of Education, of Gov- 
ernment, of Worship, of Science, and Art, 
Progress in and along all the lines of Civil, 
Political, Social, Moral, and Religious Eleva- 
tion throughout all the World. Taught by 
God's Spirit and Word that God alone is 
Supreme, and that He alone is Lord of the 
Human Conscience, Luther held in his Hand 
the Key to the Lost Paradise, and with it re- 
opened again to man its long-closed Gates, and 
bade him enter in and again be heir of all. 
And now by these Divine Fruits of the Reform- 
ation men can know it. These blessed Results 
of Protestantism attest its Divine Origin and 
declare God and God only to be its Author. 

As God's Work then, and not as Man's let 
all Protestant Christians of every name, to-day, 
upon this Anniversary of the Reformation, 
recognize and hail the Great Event. It was 
all pre-eminently God's Achievement, and to 
Him therefore belongs the Glory. Luther was 
His creation: His Gift to the whole world. 
The Reformation was His Blessing bestowed 
313 



Joy in the Divine Government. 

upon enslaved Humanity. Protestantism is 
the Rich Heritage of the Race. 

Let the whole Protestant World, the Entire 
Protestant Church, unite in praising God for the 
Reformation, for Luther, for the Unspeakable 
Blessings both of Civil and Religious Freedom 
which have come down to us all from Luther 
and the Reformation. And let all who bear 
the Protestant name be true also to their 
Protestant Christianity : true to the Great Doc- 
trines and Principles for which Luther and the 
Reformers contended so bravely. In all the 
Protestant world let Luther's Name be forever 
held in highest honor, and by every Protestai I 
let God forever be thanked for having raised 
him up and enabled him to accomplish the 
Mighty Work which he did. 



THE END. 



314 



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